The NSW Premier’s Literary Awards honour both new and familiar writers, and the novels, poems, biographies, histories, plays and screenplays that have delighted readers of all ages since 1979.

The winners of the 2009 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and Translation Prize are:

Special Award ($20,000)

The Special Award is awarded either to a work not covered by the existing categories, or in recognition of a writer’s achievements. This year the judges nominated Ms Katharine Brisbane AM for her service to Australian literature and theatre.

People’s Choice Award for fiction
Steve Toltz, A Fraction of the Whole, Penguin Group (Australia)

2008 Book of the Year Award (additional $10,000)
Nam Le, The Boat, Penguin Group (Australia)

Christina Stead Prize for fiction ($40,000)
Joan London, The Good Parents, Random House Australia Pty Ltd (Vintage)

Douglas Stewart Prize for non-fiction ($40,000)
Chloe Hooper, The Tall Man: death and life on Palm Island, Penguin Group (Australia)

Patricia Wrightson Prize for children’s literature ($30,000)
Ursula Dubosarsky ; Tohby Riddle (illus), The Word Spy, Penguin Group (Australia)

Ethel Turner Prize for young people’s literature ($30,000)
Michelle Cooper, A Brief History of Montmaray, Random House Australia Pty Ltd

Kenneth Slessor Prize for poetry ($30,000)
L K Holt, Man Wolf Man, John Leonard Press

Script Writing Award ($30,000)
Louis Nowra, Rachel Perkins & Beck Cole, First Australians, Blackfella Films, SBS

Play Award ($30,000)
Daniel Keene, The Serpent’s Teeth, Sydney Theatre Company, Currency Press Pty Ltd

The Biennial NSW Premier’s Translation Prize and PEN Trophy ($30,000)
David Colmer for his translations from the Dutch.

Community Relations Commission Award ($15,000, sponsored by the CRC)
Eric Richards, Destination Australia: migration to Australia since 1901, University of New South Wales Press Ltd

Gleebooks Prize for critical writing ($10,000, sponsored by Gleebooks)
David Love, Unfinished Business: Paul Keating’s interrupted revolution, Scribe Publications Pty Ltd

UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing ($5,000, sponsored by UTS)
Nam Le, The Boat, Penguin Group (Australia)

The 50 shortlisted works – selected from more than 640 nominations —
are featured here, and I invite you to discover a world of refreshing, confronting and inspirational reading.

The Premier’s Literary Awards have so far acclaimed more than 300 writers, providing encouragement, sponsorship, peer praise and financial sustenance to Australia’s most promising and most respected authors.

Source http://www.pla.nsw.gov.au/

So what’s new for non fiction? Well, a lot, quite a lot. First for those who like reading biography:

The alchemy of loss by Abigail Carter
Annie Leibovitz at work by Sharon DeLano
Blade runners, deer hunters & blowing the bloody doors off by Michael Deeley
Catching the wolf of Wall Street by Jordan Belfort
Choir man by Jonathon Welch
Chosen by a horse by Susan Richards
Churchill by Nigel Knight
Cityboy : beer and loathing in the Square Mile by Geraint Anderson
Cut by Cathy Glass
David Williamson : behind the scenes by Kristin Williamson
Destroyed by Jayne Sterne
The world is what it is by Patrick French
Fidel & Che by Simon Reid-Henry
Fortunate son : the unlikely rise of Keith Urban by Jeff Apter
Golden boy by Christian Ryan
Gordon Barton by Sam Everingham
Hope endures by Colette Livermore
In search of Bill Clinton : a psychological biography by John Gartner
Joan in India by Suzanne Falkiner
John Lennon by Philip Norman
Leave to remain : a memoir by Abbas El-Zein
Loving Peter by Judy Cook
Possible side effects by Augusten Burroughs
A remarkable journey by Carol Kidu
Seven seasons in Aurukun by Paula Shaw
Snowball by Alice Schroeder
Somewhere towards the end by Diana Athill
Sunbathing naked and other miracle cures by Guy Kennaway
Where war lives by Paul Watson

Other titles of non fiction
Reading matters by Margaret Willes
Homework for grown-ups by E. Foley
The man who owns the news by Michael Wolff
The lot: in words by Michael Leunig
On longing by Blanche d’Alpuget
On experience by David Malouf
The uses of sadness by Karen Masman
On ecstasy by Barrie Kosky
On Rage by Germaine Greer
On indignation by Don Watson
The decisive moment by Jonah Lehrer
Evolution in the antipodes by Tom Frame
Cyburbia by James Harkin
The next 100 years by George Friedman
Gap year by Penelope McEniry
A tale of two women by C Slade
Leisureville by A. D. Blechman
The sex diaries by B Arndt
The catastrophe continues by John Clarke
American revolution by K. Jennings
The great depression ahead by Harry Dent
Bad money by Kevin Phillips
Factory girls by L. T. Chang
The pleasures & sorrows of work by Alain de Botton
Buffett by Roger Lowenstein
The patient by Mohamed Khadra
The best American magazine writing 2008
Death and the author by David Ellis
The house of wisdom by J. Lyons
Eat, pray, love by E Gilbert
Sideways by P O’Neil
Human smoke by N Baker
Churchill and Australia by Graham Freudenberg
The shameful peace by F Spotts
Valkyrie by P von Boeselager
Putin and the rise of Russia by M Stuermer
From Russia with lunch by D Smiedt
Things I’ve been silent about by Azar Nafisi
Kill Khalid by Paul McGeough
Arabian plights by Peter Rodgers
The war within by Bob Woodward
An awkward truth by Peter Grose
The irregulars by J Conant
Journal by Hélène Berr
Why we watched by T S Hamerow

The pleasures and sorrows of work by Alain de Botton

It seems quite ridiculous or unwise to ask this question now if work gives you more pleasures or sorrows, since the news bombards us all times with stressful unemployment sorrows. It seems having a job or get employed should be the happiest thing under this tough climate.

However, one does not feel happy if a job only provides financial security but not with personal fulfilment and satisfaction. Or worse if one drags oneself coming out from bed for a job that one hates.

De Botton is a philosopher and maybe he has never worked from 9 to 5, and five days a week on a daily routine. He still has very good point of views about pleasures and sorrows of work. In this book, he selects jobs to make his philosophical expressions on jobs ranged from warehouse, logistic management, biscuits manufactory, counsellors, and painters, etc, jobs that not normally you would give a second thought beyond its surface. He does not give guidelines on how to or what if. Only when you read it you may find how much emotion that you might have lost along way of a long working life.

However, as much as I enjoyed the reading I also felt much stressed in reading a book with such tiny print text. Surely one needs a magnifier to go through it. The book has a large numbers of photos and they are equally interesting though.

Down under written by Bill Bryson

The 1st Wednesday Reading Group enjoyed their discussion on ‘Down under’. They made comments about the book.

M1: Don’t enjoy the book – a bit like a text book.
D: Enjoyed, laughed out loud, very informative; Explanation of cricket is very funny. 7/10
S: Bored me to tears, glossed over things.
C1: Enjoyed the book, made me aware of interesting facts, sardonic humour, enjoyed the story of the 3 years old, and humour about John Howard.
C2: Didn’t persevere – not the type of book I am used to
R: Enjoyed the book, cricket description, loved his humour, liked his use of language.
M2: Very informative, obscure fact that we don’t know as Australians, very enthusiastic, will go to central Australia. Loved his sense of humour, very knowledgeable. 10/10
T: Told us about Bill Bryson. Read several travelogues by Bryson’s . he can appear naïve and stupid to very intelligent, comes through that he loves the country. Well researched books. Great punch lines and paranoid about creepy crawlers’ and dogs. Treatment of indigenous is handled well. His best book is ‘A brief history of nearly everything.’ Bit monotonous towards the end.
A: Informs us about the myall creek murders through a conservation. Cross about his comments about certain parts of Australia – eg, Canberra, will take another look at it. Don’t like his criticism about our things. A bit like Don Watson’s travelogues on the ABC radio national – ‘American journey’.

Africa

Best Book

Damon Galgut (South Africa) The Imposter Penguin
Tim Keegan (South Africa) My Life with the Duvals Umuzi
Sindiwe Magona (South Africa) Beauty’s Gift Kwela books
Mandla Langa (South Africa) The Lost Colours of the Chameleon Picador Africa
Zoe Wicomb (South Africa) The One That Got Away Umuzi

Best First Book

Jassy Mackenzie (South Africa) Random Violence Umuzi
Uwem Akpan (Nigeria) Say You’re One of Them Abacus
Megan Voysey-Braig (South Africa) Till We Can Keep An Animal Jacana Media
Chris Mamewick (South Africa) Shepherds and Butchers Umuzi
Sue Rabie (South Africa) Boston Snowplough Human & Rousseau
Jane Bennett (South Africa ) Porcupine Kwela Books

Canada and Caribbean

Best Book

Marina Endicott (Canada) Good to a Fault Freehand Books
Kenneth J Harvey (Canada) Blackstrap Hawco Random House Canada
Nino Ricci (Canada) The Origin of Species Doubleday Canada
Jacob Ross(Grenada) Pynter Bender Fourth Estate
Jaspreet Singh (Canada) Chef Véhicule Press
Fred Stenson (Canada) The Great Karoo Doubleday Canada

Best First Book

Theanna Bischoff (Canada) Cleavage NeWest Press
Mark Blagrave (Canada) Silver Salts Cormorant Books
Craig Boyko (Canada) Blackouts McClelland and Stewart
Nila Gupta (Canada) The Sherpa and Other Fictions Sumach Press
Pasha Malla (Canada) The Withdrawal Method House of Anansi Press
Joan Thomas (Canada) Reading By Lightning Goose Lane Editions
Padma Viswanathan (Canada)The Toss of a Lemon Random House Canada

Europe and South Asia

Best Book

Chris Cleave (United Kingdom) The Other Hand Sceptre
Shashi Deshpande (India) The Country of Deceit Penguin
Philip Hensher (United Kingdom) The Northern Clemency Fourth Estate
Jhumpa Lahiri (United Kingdom) Unaccustomed Earth Bloomsbury Publishing
David Lodge (United Kingdom) Deaf Sentence Harvill Secker
Salman Rushdie (United Kingdom) The Enchantress of Florence Random House

Best First Book

Sulaiman Addonia (United Kingdom) The Consequences of Love Chatto and Windus
Daniel Clay (United Kingdom) Broken HarperPress
Joe Dunthorne (United Kingdom) Submarine Hamish Hamilton/Penguin
Mohammed Hanif (Pakistan) The Case of Exploding Mangoes Jonathan Cape
Murzban Shroff (India) Breathless in Bombay St. Martin’s Griffin
Rowan Somerville (United Kingdom) The End of Sleep Weidenfield and Nicholson

South East Asia and the Pacific

Best Book

Aravind Adiga (Australia) Between The Assassinations Atlantic Books
Helen Garner (Australia) The Spare Room The Text Publishing Company
Joan London (Australia) The Good Parents Random House Australia (Vintage Imprint)
Paula Morris (New Zealand) Forbidden Cities Penguin New Zealand
Christos Tsiolkas (Australia) The Slap Allen and Unwin
Tim Winton, (Australia) Breath Penguin/Hamish Hamilton

Best First Book

Aravind Adiga (Australia), The White Tiger Atlantic Books
Nam Le (Australia) The Boat Hamish Hamilton
Mo Zhi Hong (New Zealand) The Year of The Shanghai Shark Penguin New Zealand
Bridget van der Zijpp (New Zealand) Misconduct Victoria University Press
Preeta Samarasan (Malaysian) Evening is the Whole Day Fourth Estate
Ashley Sievwright (Australia) The Shallow End Clouds of Magellan