Five writers have already been selected as candidates for the 2013 Nobel Prize, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy revealed via a Twitter dispatch today. Who do you think made the top secret list of finalists?

The Nobel Prizes in other disciplines will be revealed between October 7 and October 14. “According to tradition,” the Nobel Prize for Literature date will be revealed at some point in the future. Here is the short and sweet tweet:

5 candidates have been selected for 2013 #NobelPrize in #Literature according to Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy.

Read more

The 2013 Children’s Choice Book Award winners have been revealed. Jeff Kinney took author of the year award and John Green won the teen book of the year prize.

We’ve linked to free samples of all the winners below. How many have you read? Here’s more from the release:

The Children’s Book Council and Every Child a Reader announced the winners of the sixth annual Children’s Choice Book Awards (CCBAs) at a charity gala benefitting Every Child a Reader in New York City last night.  The announcement is an annual highlight of Children’s Book Week (May 13-19, 2013) as the CCBAs is the only national book awards program where the winning titles are selected by kids and teens. Young readers across the country voted in record numbers for their favorite books, author, and illustrator at bookstores, school libraries, and at bookweekonline.com, casting more than 1,000,000 votes.

Read more

For the fifth year in a row, the National Book Foundation has bestowed its Innovations in Reading Prizes to groups “creating and sustaining a lifelong love of reading.”

Follow these links to explore the five winning projects: City National Bank for Reading Is the Way Up program, the Little Free Library movement, the Uni Project portable reading room, the Uprise Books Project for underprivileged teens and the Worldreader nonprofit. Each group will receive a $2,500 award, a certificate and a free trip to New York City to share their work with “funders, other people in the field, and reporters.” Here’s more about the Uni Project:

The Uni is a portable reading room for New York City conceived of and run by Leslie and Sam Davol. It provides a new kind of amenity for city residents, while fostering a stronger, more prominent culture of reading and learning. The Uni consists of lightweight cubes that serve as shelves and stack to create a place to gather. Benches provide seating, and volunteers act as hosts. The people who gather around are transformed into readers on a kind of stage, and neighborhoods are transformed into places where the value of reading and learning is recognized, promoted, and shared.

JKSCommunications, a literary publicity company, has organized the First Annual Book Bloggies Awards to honor book bloggers.

For four categories, the winners will be determined by readers’ votes: Biggest Variety, Most Creative Features, Best Indie Reviewer, and Most Eye-Catching Blog Layout. A deadline has been set for midnight on May 14th.

Here’s more from the announcement: “In addition to your votes in those separate categories, the JKS team will be choosing one overall winner as the 2013 Miss/Mr. Book Bloggie of the Year. Recipients of each award will be announced May and each will receive a special award to commemorate this honor!”

Harper’s Magazine and Stephen King have won the National Magazine Award for fiction this year.

Below, we’ve linked to winners in other writing categories. Harper’s Magazine received the award for King’s story, “Batman and Robin Have an Altercation” (subscriber only), published last September.

At the awards ceremony last night, The Paris Review and editor Lorin Stein took the National Magazine Award for the best Literary, Political and Professional Magazines of the year. Atlantic editor and author Ta-Nehisi Coates won the essays and criticism award for “Fear of a Black President.”

Read more

Author Dennis Lehane has won the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award for Best Novel with Live by Night.

You can read free samples of all the Edgar Award nominees below, highlighting the winning books in bold.

Among the winners, Ben Winters won best paperback original with The Last Policeman and Chris Pavone won the best first novel by an american author with The Expats.

Read more

Maidenhead by Tamara Faith Berger has won the Believer Book Award for 2013 and The Hartford Book by Samuel Amadon took the Believer Poetry Award this year.

To help readers explore all the finalists, we’ve created a literary mixtape linking to excerpts of all the finalists–look below for the free literary sampler. Here’s more about Maidenhead:

It is the rare writer who can produce, between the same covers, a genuine work of erotica (which Maidenhead, from Coach House Books, is) and a deep portrait of a young woman’s coming-of-age, with all that implies: her political awakening, her newly critical eye turned toward her family, and a life of embroilments far greater than she can truly handle. Tamara Faith Berger has been writing challenging and sexy books for more than a decade, but this novel is her best yet.

Read more

Matilda The Musical has been nominated for 12 Tony Awards this year. You should read a free sample of the original Roald Dahl novel.

The Broadway adaptation was nominated for Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score (Tim Minchin wrote the music and lyrics). In addition, Bertie Carvel was nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, Lauren Ward was nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role. Here’s more about the nominations:

Matilda is the story of an extraordinary little girl who decides that despite a bad beginning, her story is going to be an astonishing one. Armed with a vivid imagination and a sharp mind, Matilda dares to take a stand and change her destiny.

Terry Pratchett fans celebrated the fantasy novelist’s birthday yesterday. According to Tor.com, the beloved author of Discworld is also “the most shoplifted author in Britain.”

If you want to celebrate, check out the finalists for the first ever Terry Pratchett Anywhere But Here, Anywhen But Now First Novel Award. The winning novelists gets a £20,000 prize as an advance on a publishing contract. Here’s more about the contest:

These six books will be discussed by the judging panel which includes Sir Terry Pratchett, Rob Wilkins, Editorial Director Simon Taylor, Publicist Lynsey Dalladay and Alex Veasey from The Forbidden Planet. A winner will be announced on the 31st May. Thank you to everyone who took part and sent in your novels, the standard was remarkably high and we had over 500 entries. Apologies for keeping you on tenterhooks, the sixth spot was hotly contested as the standard was so high.

Read more

This year’s winners of the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes have been revealed, celebrating the best books of the year.

Below, we’ve linked to free samples of the award-winning books for your reading pleasure. The winners were announced at ceremony on Friday.

Read more