"The Rest is Noise" by Alex Ross is the winner of the The Guardian First Book Award 2008. It is a non-fiction book, an history of 20th-century music to be precise. Personally, I think that fiction and non-fiction should be separated in literary prizes. You cannot really compare them, and while some people read only fiction, other people prefer essays.
Also, I was disappointed that A Case of Exploding Mangoes or A Fraction of the Whole did not win, because I'm really looking forward to read them (apart from the fact that the second "puts me down" as it's 700-pages long and I'm biased against long novels).
These were the other contestants: A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammad Hanif (Pakistan), A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz (Australia), God's Own Country by Ross Raisin (UK) and Stalin's Children by Owen Matthews (UK).
Must be an interesting book!
ReplyDeleteWell, just passed to say hello, take care!
Cool:hope to find this in my country;it seems to be interesting...
ReplyDeleteA presto,un abbraccio!
i had bet on "a case of exploding mangoes"...
ReplyDelete:-(
p.s.: i've found a great bookshop in dubai... if you need anything, let me know. i can send some books if there is someone traveling to italy...