See the 2010 shortlist, longlist and click through to vote
Young people (under 20 yrs) can now vote for their favourite book and go in the running to win a prizepack of every shortlisted book. Voting closes on 19 November.
There's also a display competition that schools and libraries can enter
=> http://bit.ly/9b0bCa
The Legend of the Golden Snail
All the details at Pivotal Kids the blog => http://bit.ly/aukAUU
The Gene Thieves
By Maria Quinn
Brilliant, lonely genetic scientist Piggy Brown is desperate for a child, but he's in a tricky legal situation. Dancer is a lawyer with his own reasons for wanting to grant Piggy's dearest wish - and he can set up Conjugal Contracts which push the envelope of the law. Dancer visits The Nest, the official centre for surrogates, and inveigles them into recommending someone they have used before, someone who won't ask too many questions about the baby she carries. But choosing a surrogate can be risky, and this one, Angela, comes with baggage: her own child, Molly, a six-year-old who has already seen too much of her mother's world. When a grotesque kidnapping occurs, everything is thrown into chaos and Jack Lee, Chief Investigator for the UN Ethical Science Council, decides it's time to take charge of the case - for the sake of humanity's future.
(Winner: The inaugural Norma K Hemming Award for excellence in the exploration of themes of race, gender, class and sexuality in Australian speculative fiction )
By Maria Quinn
Brilliant, lonely genetic scientist Piggy Brown is desperate for a child, but he's in a tricky legal situation. Dancer is a lawyer with his own reasons for wanting to grant Piggy's dearest wish - and he can set up Conjugal Contracts which push the envelope of the law. Dancer visits The Nest, the official centre for surrogates, and inveigles them into recommending someone they have used before, someone who won't ask too many questions about the baby she carries. But choosing a surrogate can be risky, and this one, Angela, comes with baggage: her own child, Molly, a six-year-old who has already seen too much of her mother's world. When a grotesque kidnapping occurs, everything is thrown into chaos and Jack Lee, Chief Investigator for the UN Ethical Science Council, decides it's time to take charge of the case - for the sake of humanity's future.
(Winner: The inaugural Norma K Hemming Award for excellence in the exploration of themes of race, gender, class and sexuality in Australian speculative fiction )
"Dip into the first enormous volume of Twain's autobiography that he had decreed should not appear until 100 years after his death. And Twain will begin to seem strange again, alluring and still astonishing, but less sure-footed, and at times both puzzled and puzzling in ways that still resonate with us, though not the ways we might expect." --New York Times
You are meant to have an amazing life! This is the handbook to the greatest power in the Universe - The Power to have anything you want. Every discovery, invention, and human creation comes from The Power. Perfect health, incredible relationships, a career you love, a life filled with happiness, and the money you need to be, do, and have everything you want, all come from The Power. The life of your dreams has always been closer to you than you realized, because The Power - to have everything good in your life - is inside you. To create anything, to change anything, all it takes is just one thing...THE POWER.
You are meant to have an amazing life! This is the handbook to the greatest power in the Universe - The Power to have anything you want. Every discovery, invention, and human creation comes from The Power. Perfect health, incredible relationships, a career you love, a life filled with happiness, and the money you need to be, do, and have everything you want, all come from The Power. The life of your dreams has always been closer to you than you realized, because The Power - to have everything good in your life - is inside you. To create anything, to change anything, all it takes is just one thing...THE POWER.
The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal
Ben Mezrich
You may think you know the story of the Facebook phenomenon, but you haven’t heard the whole story and never like this. Recreating the unbelievable rise of the world's biggest social network—not to mention the planet's youngest billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg—Ben tells a captivating story of betrayal, vast amounts of cash, and two friends who revolutionized the way humans connect to one another—only to have an enormous falling out and never speak again.
If the book is any indication, the film is going to be a must see.—Kevin Spacey
Facebook addicts may rejoice, but all others should avoid Billionaires. - Bookmarks Magazine
... more details here => http://amzn.to/d1pO8K
The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal
Ben Mezrich
You may think you know the story of the Facebook phenomenon, but you haven’t heard the whole story and never like this. Recreating the unbelievable rise of the world's biggest social network—not to mention the planet's youngest billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg—Ben tells a captivating story of betrayal, vast amounts of cash, and two friends who revolutionized the way humans connect to one another—only to have an enormous falling out and never speak again.
If the book is any indication, the film is going to be a must see.—Kevin Spacey
Facebook addicts may rejoice, but all others should avoid Billionaires. - Bookmarks Magazine
... more details here => http://amzn.to/d1pO8K
In fact it won The Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction ($30,000):
It earlier won the Miles Franklin Award for 2010: Peter Temple's thriller, Truth
Truth is a novel about a man, a family, a city. It is about violence, murder, love, corruption, honour and deceit. And it is about truth.
Peter Temple moves into the territory of The Bonfire of the Vanities and JM Coetzee's Disgrace with a masterpiece of modern fiction. A teenage prostitute is found with her neck broken in a bathroom in an apartment in The Prosilio, a new playground for the very rich. Despite the ultra sophisticated security, all systems crashed, the management is hand in glove with high ups in government and Stephen Villani, Head of Homicide, isn't getting much cooperation. Three men are found murdered in a garage, two of them so brutally tortured that it goes beyond the usual low-life revenge story. The suspects are then tipped off and die in a car accident, escaping from Villani. The public and populist politicians are baying for the police to take the blame for violent lawlessness and corruption. In this heartbreaking, nerve-wracking novel, Temple lays bare the soul of a man, Villani, as he faces the moral decline of a society and himself. Incapable of constancy as a father and a husband, damaged as a son and true only to his job and the confrontational stance he knows best, he seems unable to intervene while his teenage daughter runs with drug dealers. And while politicians and businessmen plot to make more money and buy people and their silence, the fires are coming closer from the outback to inhabited country, including where Villani's father lives.
You can buy the paperback for about $16 (and not pay any postage) here => http://bit.ly/bXmADo
