As we all know, the Academy Awards took place last night. Congrats to all of the book-to-movie Random House, Inc. winners!

Best Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique from Precious based on the novel Push by Sapphire

Best Animated Film: Up

Best Adapted Screenplay: Precious based on the novel Push by Sapphire

Among the other nominees were The Last Station, Up in the Air, and Julie & Julia (partially based on My Life in France by Julia Child).

Be sure to stock up on these titles as you will surely have patrons who have to read the book first!

The finalists for the 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award have been announced and two Random House, Inc. books are among them.

Lorrie Moore’s A Gate at the Stairs and Colson Whitehead’s Sag Harbor join literary heavyweight Barbara Kingsolver (The Lacuna) and two others who are nominated for the award, which was founded by writers in 1980 and partially named after William Faulkner.

Previous Random House, Inc. winners in recent years include: Netherland by Joseph O’Neill (2009), Everyman by Phillip Roth (2007) and The March by E.L. Doctorow (2006).

We just got word of another important list of awards for our books: The Amelia Bloomer Project list, a yearly round-up of strong feminist works. Here is what the project is all about:

“In an effort both to alert readers to society’s opposition toward women’s equality and to highlight progress toward this vital goal, the 2010 Amelia Bloomer Project members selected 54 books notable for feminist content, quality of writing, and appeal to young readers.”

And congratulations to the authors, editors, and contributors to the following books!

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley (Delacorte Press)

Mare’s War by Tanita S. Davis (Alfred A. Knopf)

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas D. Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn (Alfred A. Knopf)

The Road of Lost Innocence by Somaly Mam (Spiegel & Grau)

The Secret Keeper by Mitali Perkins (Delacorte)

Bloodhound by Tamora Pierce (Random House)

-Dave

Hi everyone! All the ALA committees have made their decisions! And now we would like to congratulate this year’s Random House Inc. award-winning books and all those who worked on them. Here is a list of what brought home the shiny stuff this year.

Random House Inc.’s ALA Notable Books 2010

Fiction:

Year of the Flood by Maraget Atwood
Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon
A Mercy by Toni Morrison
The Vagrants by Yiyun Li
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

Nonfiction:

The Snake Head by Patrick Radden Keefe
The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes
The Lost City of Z by David Grann
Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

(Full List)

2010 Alex Award Winner

The Kids Are All Right: A Memoir by Diana, Liz, Amanda, and Dan Welch

BCALA Literary Award Winners

Fiction Honor Book

Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead

Nonfiction Winner

The Breakthrough by Gwen Ifill

Outstanding Contribution to Publishing Citation

In Search of Our Roots by Henry Louis Gates

2010 RUSA Reading List Picks (full)

Adrenaline

Winner:
Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child
Short List:
The Neighbor by Lisa Gardner
Shatter by Michael Robotham

Fantasy

Short List:
The Red Wolf Conspiracy by Robert V. S. Redick
The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett

Historical Fiction

Short List:
Cleopatra’s Daughter by Michelle Moran
Etta by Gerald Kolpan
The Owl Killers by Karen Maitland

Mystery

Short List:
Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

Romance

Short List:
Goddess of the Hunt by Tessa Dare

Women’s Fiction

Short List:
After You by Julie Buxbaum

2010 Sophie Brody Awards

Winner

Book of the Unknown: Tales of the 36 by Jonathon Keats

Honor Book

The Jewish Body by Melvin Konner

YALSA 2010 Best Books for Young Adults

Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

YALSA Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens

Bayou, Vol. 1 by Jeremy Love
A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge by Josh Neufeld

2010 Stonewall Book Awards

Children’s and Young Adult Literature Award

Honor Book
Daddy, Papa and Me/Mommy, Mamma and Me by Leslea Newman

Israel Fishman Nonfiction Award

The Greeks and Greek Love by James Davidson

The New York Times Book Review has announced their Top 10 Books of 2009 and three wonderful Random House, Inc. titles have made the list!

Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem

A Gate at the Stairs by Laurie Moore

The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes

Be sure these titles are available as your patrons will surely be asking for them! View the full list here.

What a night!  Not one, but TWO National Book Awards for Random House, Inc. authors!  Just wanted to give a little shout out of congratulations to our honored authors:

LET THE GREAT WORLD SPINby Colum McCann (Random House) received the 2009 National Book Award for Fiction right after THE FIRST TYCOON: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T. J. Stiles (Knopf) was announced as the Nonfiction winner.

A thrilling night for our authors, as well as for us. 

And we just got the news today that a trade paperback edition of LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN  is being rushed to press and will be available on 12/08/09.  Perfect to help meet the surge in demand.

Did you know there were Video Book Awards? I confess, I did not. But three intriguing videos are finalists for Kirkus Reviews 2009 Book Video Awards. The Award “challenges student filmmakers to create video trailers based on three upcoming young-adult novels to be published by Random House Children’s Books. ”

The three finalist books are: Very Lefreak, The Maze Runner, and Fallen.

Vote for your favorite here and be sure to add these books to your YA collections.

-Marie

I don’t know if I’ve ever looked forward so much to something so bleak and horrifying. On November 6, a movie called “Precious” comes out, based on a novel we publish called PUSH by Sapphire. (For the movie-tie-in editon, they’ve changed the title to fit the movie)

The film, according to the article in The NYTimes Magazine, received a 15-minute standing ovation at the Cannes film festival, and it also won a Grand Jury prize at Sundance several months ago. The piece in the magazine is an interesting read, and features a cool interview with the director about who has inspired him over the years. Share it with your friends and patrons to generate interest!

-David

Booklist has announced its “Top 10 First Novels of 2009″ and I’m pleased to say that one of my faves (and a past Random Revelations Staff Pick) has made the cut along with two other Random House titles. Here’s what they had to say:

The Invisible Mountain by Carolina de Robertis: “Words, so beautifully employed by this author, seem inadequate to convey the essence of this twentieth-century Uruguayan woman-centered family saga.”

Lime Tree Can’t Bear Orange by Amanda Smyth: “In lithe, lyrical prose, the author evokes the lush language of the West Indies and the modest lives lived at the mercy of fate.”

Precious by Sandra Novack: “Trouble simmers beneath the surface of a bucolic Pennsylvania town in Novack’s dramatic, elegantly rendered debut.”

Check out the full list of Top 10 First Novels here. Also, be sure to take a peek at the list of “Top 10 First Novels for Youth” featuring  some titles by our friends at Random House Children’s and Egmont.

-Marie

As many of you know, the Man Booker prize was announced yesterday, and we’d first like to congratulate our friends at Macmillan on their win for Wolf Hall! Please check out their post about it here.

But we’d also like to congratulate Other Press, one of our Publisher Services clients, on being shortlisted! For such a small house, Other Press publishes some tremendously well written and well respected books (such as the oft-Best-Booked Hurry Down Sunshine). Their novel of a fraying marriage, The Glass Room, was chosen as a finalist this year and, according to the publisher Judith, was the most absorbing story they’ve ever published. (It’s also the only one of the finalists currently in paperback: $avings!) Be sure to check your shelves today!

-David