College Library News

Clare’s Walk is the latest production by Steve Waters, Director of Studies in Drama at Homerton College, Cambridge. In the words of the Menagerie Theatre’s web page:

“Clare’s Walk takes for its inspiration the nightmarish journey of 1841 by poet John Clare (1793-1864) from the lunatic asylum where he was incarcerated in Epping Forest to his home in Northborough in North Cambridgeshire, along the route of the A1.

“Playwright Steve Waters and actor Patrick Morris re-walked the route in June 2005, looking at how the landscape has changed since Clare’s day, and the development issues the entire region faces, examining the themes aired in Clare’s verse in a modern context: the connection between self and environment, between ownership and dispossession.”

I have come across only one review of Clare’s Walk by Jill Sharp for The British Theatre Guide.

Anyway - you have one more chance to see it. An extra production is being staged this Friday, 14 July, 6.00pm, at The Junction in Cambridge as part of the Hotbed 2006 Cambridge festival of new writing for the theatre.

The play’s main source is a short journal Clare kept on his walk. This journal is freely accessible online - near the end of the ebook The Life of John Clare by Frederick Martin (thanks to Project Gutenberg, a large online repository of freely available ebooks). The Library holds many works by and about Clare and we currently have a small display on the first floor commemorating him and Steve Waters’ production.

Other links to John Clare include:
The John Clare Page
The John Clare Society
John Clare weblog [a poem a day]
Poem Hunter - John Clare [full text of 53 poems by John Clare].

Coincidentally, The John Clare Trust reports that, on Tuesday 4 July, it was awarded a ‘Stage One Pass’ from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for its project to buy and restore John Clare’s Cottage in Helpston [near Peterborough] and to open it to the public for the first time. This is where Clare was born and brought up.

Update (September 2006):
Sadly (for us), Steve Waters has left Homerton College to take up a drama post at University of Birmingham as Lecturer in Playwriting. Read his new profile.

[This item is based mostly on the St John’s College eBook web page]

From January 2006 over 118 of the books most heavily used by Cambridge students will be available on-line via NetLibrary, a web eContent provider and a division of OCLC (Online Computer Library Center, Inc). This initiative is being developed by College libraries as an alternative response to the demand on heavily used texts, and has been formed in association with NetLibrary, suppliers of ebooks to other major research universities. This project has been made possible by the work of the Ebook Project Team of the Cambridge College Libraries’ Forum (CCLF), and by a generous donation from Professor Robert Z. Aliber, of St John’s College, Professor of International Economics and Finance Emeritus, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.

Currently available are 118 eBooks, which are digital full-text versions of reference works, scholarly monographs, literature and fiction. Also there are 3,400 publicly-accessible titles that have come out of copyright including a wide range of literary, fictional and historical texts.

The purpose of the subscription is to:
- maximize access to information for junior members, particularly undergraduates,
- include material from all subjects taught in the Tripos, with special emphasis on the needs of those studying for Part 1,
- augment, but not replace, the Colleges print collections,
- offer flexibility of access.

The titles available can be accessed by two different routes - off campus a Raven password is necessary. [Most staff and students should by now have a Raven password. They are issued by the University Computing Service. For further information see http://www.cam.ac.uk/cs/docs/faq/n5.html].

1. By logging on to the NetLibrary site from any computer with a local (ie. cam domain) IP address, or externally using a Raven password. From here it is possible either to search for specific titles, or to view the entire selection by choosing ‘What’s available’ from the top menu, and then ‘List all ebooks’ in the left hand box.

2. By searching for a specific title on the University’s Newton catalogue under Colleges databases A-N and P-W. When the search results are returned they will include a hit with the Library location ‘Electronic book’. Go into this record and then follow the link under the heading ‘Linked resources’. Again usage here is limited to cam domain IP addresses, or access via a Raven password. To see all the titles available you can use “Netlibrary” as a keyword search.

Once a title has been selected it is possible to view the text by following the link ‘View this eBook’. Limits apply to their use: books are available to browse in 15 minute slots, and limited to three users at a time. If you have registered interest in a title but it is unavailable you can opt to receive an email informing you when it becomes available. By setting up a personal account you are able to save a list of ebook titles and to write and save your own notes for specific ebooks.

The current access arrangements are part of a year long pilot project so any feedback or suggestions to the Ebook Project Team about this facility would be gratefully received at ucam-lib-ebooks@lists.cam.ac.uk. An evaluation report will be prepared in Autumn 2006.

The CCLF Ebook Project Team comprises librarians at Trinity College, Queens’ College, Forbes Mellon Library (Clare College), St John’s College, Lucy Cavendish College, and Selwyn College.

Other links:
Project website (Selwyn College eBook web page)
UL eBook introduction
St John’s College eBook web page
Item in current Readers’ Newsletter

Note that texts of out of copyright works are widely available on the web through, for exmaple, the Digital Book Index, Project Gutenberg, and The Online Books Page. Online textbooks are being collated by Textbook Revolution.

Whitbread Group PLC today announced the 2005 Whitbread Book Award winners in the Novel, First Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children’s Book categories.

Ali Smith scoops the Novel Award for The Accidental.

Outsider Tash Aw beats Rachel Zadok to take First Novel Award for The Harmony Silk Factory.

Kate Thompson beats three-times Whitbread winner Geraldine McCaughrean to take the Children’s Book Award with The New Policeman.

Hilary Spurling claims the Biography Award with the second part of her masterful biography of Matisse, Matisse the Master, a work which took her 15 years to complete.

Christopher Logue with the fifth and penultimate instalment of his celebrated account of the Iliad, Cold Calls, is the winner of the Poetry Award.

The five Whitbread Book Award winners above, each of whom will receive £5,000, were selected from 476 entries, the highest total ever received in one year. The five books are now eligible for the ultimate prize - the 2005 Whitbread Book of the Year.

The winner of the overall Whitbread Book of the Year will be announced at The Brewery in central London on Tuesday 24th January 2006 by a panel of judges chaired by the author and former Children’s Laureate Michael Morpurgo MBE.

Members of the public can vote via the Whitbread Book Awards website for which of the five books they would select as Whitbread Book of the Year. Everyone who votes will be entered into a free prize draw to win a set of the five category winners. A chart showing the most hotly-tipped book according to the public vote will also be available on the website.

For comments see The Guardian: Literary honours for some newish names and a rather old one, The Independent: Forty years after he began it, poet wins prize for epic work and The Times: Whitbread winners announced.

Secret life of Matisse wins Whitbread prize

[from The Guardian] The most undeniably solid prose talent left in this year’s Whitbread prize stayed the course through a desperately close last round of judging last night and won the £30,000 book of the year award by a whisker.

The 512-page second [and final] instalment of Hilary Spurling’s monumental biography of Matisse, astonishingly the first of the master modernist who died 52 years ago, beat off a challenge which was less stiff than it might have been because so many of the year’s leading titles fell at earlier stages of judging. […]

Spurling, who spent 15 years writing and researching her two-part biography of the French artist, said she was “gobsmacked”, adding: “My money was placed elsewhere.”

Author Michael Morpurgo, who chaired the judging panel, said the biography was “an extraordinary achievement”. He added: “It has opened our eyes to great art, and done it in an extraordinary way.”

The Whitbread 2005 shortlists were announced on Wednesday 16 November.

Novel Award shortlist (112 entries)
- Nick Hornby Long Way Down (Viking)
- Salman Rushdie Shalimar the Clown (Jonathan Cape)
- Ali Smith The Accidental (Hamish Hamilton)
- Christopher Wilson The Ballad of Lee Cotton (Little, Brown)

First Novel Award shortlist (80 entries)
- Tash Aw The Harmony Silk Factory (Harper Perennial)
- Diana Evans 26a (Chatto & Windus)
- Peter Hobbs The Short Day Dying (Faber and Faber)
- Rachel Zadok Gem Squash Tokoloshe (Pan Macmillan)

Biography Award shortlist (114 entries)
- Nigel Farndale Haw-Haw: the Tragedy of William and Margaret Joyce (Macmillan)
- Richard Mabey Nature Cure (Chatto & Windus)
- Alexander Masters Stuart: A Life Backwards (Fourth Estate)
- Hilary Spurling Matisse the Master (Hamish Hamilton)

Poetry Award shortlist (61 entries)
- David Harsent Legion (Faber and Faber)
- Christopher Logue Cold Calls (Faber and Faber)
- Richard Price Lucky Day (Carcanet)
- Jane Yeh Marabou (Carcanet)

Children’s Book Award shortlist (109 entries)
- Frank Cottrell Boyce Framed (Macmillan)
- Geraldine McCaughrean The White Darkness (Oxford University Press)
- Hilary McKay Permanent Rose (Hodder Headline)
- Kate Thompson The New Policeman (The Bodley Head)

Guardian: Snub for big beasts as Hornby makes Whitbread shortlist and link to Guardian reviews
The Times: Richard & Judy help writer on to prize list and link to Times reviews
The Independent: Former waitress on shortlist for Whitbread
The Daily Telegraph: Richard and Judy hopeful shortlisted for Whitbread and links to Telegraph reviews
BBC website: Hornby on track for novel prize

The ‘human interest’ story which many newspapers siezed upon was of Rachel Zadok who, working as a bar waitress in Herne Hill, South London, happened to see Channel 4’s Richard & Judy announcing their How To Get Published competition. She entered and made the shortlist of five (out of 46,000 entries) and, although not winning the contest, attracted the interest of publishers Pan Macmillan with her child’s-eye view of South Africa.

Nick Hornby, who has already written three international bestsellers (High Fidelity, About a Boy, How to be Good), finds himself for the first time shortlisted for a literary award with his latest book A Long Way Down.

Two books are of local interest: the author of The Accidental, Ali Smith, is a local author living in Cambridge and Alexander Master’s biography, Stuart: A Life Backwards, is about a violent drug addict, Stuart Shorter, he befriended whilst working at a Cambridge day centre for the homeless - Stuart died under a train before the book was published. Alexander Masters won funding for his book from the Arts Council England Writers’ Awards in 2003.

Salamn Rushdie won the Whitbread Novel Award in 1995 with The Moor’s Last Sigh and the Man Booker Prize in 1991 for Midnight’s Children which went on to win the ‘Booker of Bookers’ in 1993 as the best of the 25 Booker winners up to then. Ali Smith’s The Accidental was also shortlisted for this year’s Man Booker Prize, whilst both Salman Rushdie and Tash Aw failed to progress beyond the initial longlist. Diana Evans’ 26a has already won the 2005 Orange Award for New Writers. Christopher Wilson was previously shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel Award in 1991 with Mischief and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize with Blueglass.

Richard Mabey, better known as a nature writer, has written a book, Nature Cure, about his own experience of recovering from depression - he has won the Whitbread Biography Award before in 1986 with Gilbert White, a biography of The Reverend Gilbert White (1720-1793), regarded as England’s first ecologist.

David Harsent’s poetry collection Legion has already won the 2005 Best Collection in the Forward Prize for Poetry. Geraldine McCaughrean has already won the Whitbread Children’s Award three times - most recently last year with Not the End of the World and Hilary McKay has won the Children’s Award once before in 2002 with Saffy’s Angel. Frank Cottrell Boyce has won the CILIP Carnegie Medal in 2004 for his previous (and first) children’s book Millions.

The Whitbread Awards recognize the most enjoyable books of last year by writers based in the UK and Ireland. Each of the five category winners receive £5,000 - the category winners will be announced on Wednesday 4 January 2006. The overall winner, the Whitbread Book of the Year, receives £25,000 - the overall winner will be selected and announced at the Whitbread Book Awards ceremony in central London on Tuesday 24 January 2006.

Although the Whitbread Book Award has existed in various forms since 1971, originally as the Whitbread Literary Awards, the controversial overall Whitbread Book of the Year award was first awarded in 1985. Some think that it is impossible to pick an overall winner out of five different genres of writing - comparing, say, biography with poetry. The spread of winners appears to disadvantage children’s books: the overall award has been won seven times by a novel, three times by a first novel, four times by a biography, five times by a collection of poetry and only once by a children’s book.

Last year’s winners were:
- Novel Award and overall Whitbread Book of the Year 2004: Andrea Levy Small Island
- First Novel Award: Susan Fletcher Eve Green
- Biography Award: John Guy My Heart is My Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots
- Poetry Award: Michael Symmons Roberts Corpus
- Children’s Book Award: Geraldine McCaughrean Not the End of the World

Veteran arts presenter Melvyn Bragg is to present a new four-part ITV1 television series on the 12 books he thinks have changed the world. The Twelve Books that Changed the World, a follow-up to his last ITV1 literary series The Adventure of English, has begun filming for broadcast in April 2006.

The twelve world-changing books, according to Bragg, are (in chronological order):
• Magna Carta (1215)
• King James Bible (1611)
• William Shakespeare’s First Folio (1623)
• Principia Mathematica (Isaac Newton, 1687)
• Patent specification for Arkwright’s spinning machine (1769)
• The Wealth of Nations (Adam Smith, 1776)
• William Wilberforce’s Commons of Commons speech (12 May, 1789)
• A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Mary Wollstonecraft, 1792)
• Experimental Research in Electricity (Michael Faraday, 1855)
• The Origin of Species (Charles Darwin, 1859)
• The first rule book of the Football Association (1863)
• Married Love (Marie Stopes, 1918)

Lord Bragg also presents ITV1’s arts television programme The South Bank Show and BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time which has to be the most uncompromisingly intellectual programme on any channel in any medium. Interestingly, it is also the BBC’s most popular ‘podcast’ - see BBC Radio download and podcast trial for details of the BBC’s podcasting trial service of selected radio programmes which runs until the end of this year. Podcasts are mp3 downloads which can be played on any mp3 player.

An ITV spokeswoman said Bragg wrote the series himself: “When people think of things that change the world, they tend to think of extraordinary events: the assassination of leaders; the invasion of countries; the havoc wreaked by natural disasters. All extremely dramatic, but there is something less attention-grabbing, but just as powerful, which changes the world - books.”

Lord Bragg, who is Controller of Arts at London Weekend Television and president of the National Campaign for the Arts, also writes books - including the books to go with his many tv and radio series, not to mention 17 novels. Where does he find the time?

The 2005 Man Booker Prize for Fiction shortlist was announced this afternoon. Out of the 17 longlisted books (see previous post), the following six were shortlisted:

- John Banville - The Sea (Picador)
- Julian Barnes - Arthur & George (Jonathan Cape)
- Sebastian Barry - A Long Long Way (Faber & Faber)
- Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go (Faber & Faber)
- Ali Smith - The Accidental (Hamish Hamilton)
- Zadie Smith - On Beauty (Hamish Hamilton)

The main surprise is that Ian McEwan failed to make the grade with Saturday - thought to be a dead cert for the shortlist if not for the overall winner. Other literary heavyweights falling at the first fence were Salman Rushdie (for Shalimar the Clown) and J M Coetzee (for Slow Man) - both previous Booker Prize winners.

We have a local representative on the shortlist: Ali Smith, who lives in Cambridge. This year’s dark horse is Sebastian Barry with A Long Long Way about Irish soldiers in the Great War. Kazuo Ishiguro is a previous winner of the Booker Prize (as it was then known) with The Remains of the Day in 1989 - which became better known with the 1993 film version starring Sir Anthony Hopkins as the butler.

John Sutherland, Chair of Judges, commented:

“The selection of a shortlist, the judges felt, was an unusually difficult process this year. There was sufficient quality for two distinguished lists. We were aware that the rules require that the award be to the best novel. The strength of the year’s competition can be measured by the fact that three good books by previous Man Booker winners were finally not selected. This shortlist, we believe, witnesses to the remarkable quality of the current state of fiction. We look forward to the final round.”

Last year’s winner was Alan Hollinghurst for The Line of Beauty, a satire of the 1980s Conservative government. The library has acquired this book and intends to acquire this year’s winning book.

This year’s longlist of titles picked for the Guardian First Book Award is ‘the most diverse yet in ethnic origin and theme’. The longlist comprises the following ten books:

Fiction (4 titles)
- The Harmony Silk Factory by Tash Aw (Harper Perennial)
- 26A by Diana Evans (Chatto and Windus)
- Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap (Atlantic)
- Misfortune by Wesley Stace (Cape)

Non-fiction (5 titles)
- No god but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam by Reza Aslan (Heinemann)
- The Farm by Richard Benson (Hamish Hamilton)
- The Ice Museum by Joanna Kavenna (Viking)
- Stuart: A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters (Fourth Estate)
- Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found by Suketu Mehta (Headline/Review)

Poetry (1 title)
- To a Fault by Nick Laird (Faber)

Five of the titles are already featured in other book awards: 26A won the Orange Award for New Writers, both Stuart: A Life Backwards and Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found were shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction, The Harmony Silk Factory is on the current Man Booker longlist, and To a Fault is shortlisted for a Forward Prize.

The Guardian’s site has reviews and extracts of the longlisted books.

Key dates:
Shortlist announcement: Thursday November 3
Winner announcement: during week beginning Monday December 5

The winner of last year’s Guardian First Book Award was a non-fiction title Mutants: On the Form, Varieties and Errors of the Human Body by Armand Marie Leroi (Harper Collins).

The 2005 Man Booker Prize for Fiction longlist of books for this year has been issued. It comprises 17 books chosen from 109 entries (of which eight titles were ‘called in’ by the judges). ‘The Booker’ is generally regarded as the UK’s most prestigious fiction award.

The longlist for the 2005 Man Booker Prize for Fiction is as follows:
- The Harmony Silk Factory by Tash Aw (Fourth Estate)
- The Sea by John Banville (Picador)
- Arthur & George by Julian Barnes (Jonathan Cape)
- A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry (Faber & Faber)
- Slow Man by JM Coetzee (Secker & Warburg)
- In the Fold by Rachel Cusk (Faber & Faber)
- Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (Faber & Faber)
- All For Love by Dan Jacobson (Hamish Hamilton)
- A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka (Viking)
- Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel (Fourth Estate)
- Saturday by Ian McEwan (Jonathan Cape)
- The People’s Act of Love by James Meek (Canongate)
- Shalimar The Clown by Salman Rushdie (Jonathan Cape)
- The Accidental by Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton)
- On Beauty by Zadie Smith (Hamish Hamilton)
- This Thing Of Darkness by Harry Thompson (Headline Review)
- This Is The Country by William Wall (Sceptre)

The Guardian’s reaction, Literary heavyweights dominate Booker longlist, states that this year’s longlist is ’short’ and concentrated in good writing:

‘On a list lacking any great surprises, shoo-ins such as Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro, both previous winners, whose novels Saturday and Never Let Me Go were hotly tipped as Booker contenders from the moment of their publication - were joined by two-time Booker-winner and 2003 Nobel laureate JM Coetzee. Salman Rushdie, who has also picked up the £50,000 cheque once before, in 1981 for Midnight’s Children, made the list for his as-yet-unpublished Shalimar the Clown. Zadie Smith also features with an unpublished novel; her third book, On Beauty, is due out in early September’.

Timetable:
- 2005 shortlist of six announced: Thursday 8th September.
- The 2005 winner announced: Monday 10th October at an awards ceremony at Guildhall, London broadcast live on BBC TWO and BBC FOUR.

The judging panel for the 2005 Man Booker Prize for Fiction is: John Sutherland (Chair); fiction editor of the Times Literary Supplement, Lindsay Duguid; writer and antiquarian book dealer, Rick Gekoski; novelist, Josephine Hart; and literary editor of The Evening Standard, David Sexton.

The winner of the Man Booker Prize receives £50,000. The six shortlisted authors each receive a cheque for £2,500, bringing the total prize value to £65,000. A full history of the prize including previous winners, shortlisted authors and judges is available on the Man Booker Prize site. Last year’s winner was The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst (Picador).

For the budding writers amongst us, The New Writing Partnership (NWP) is a new East of England enterprise about encouraging new writers. It has been set up by Booktrust, whose website is an excellent resource of everything about books.

Amongst other intiatives, NWP has launched New Writing Ventures where you may submit original unpublished works of up to 3,000 words and prizes are possible. Winners will be given professional literary backup and mentoring. But be quick: the closing date for entries is Friday 1st July.

“This is for unpublished writers of fiction, poetry and non-fiction, with the hope that these categories may be extended in subsequent years.With prizes of £5000 for the winners in each category…”

Another venture from the NWP is My Writing World, now open for literary discussion and sharing of short fragments (250 words max) of prose (fiction and non fiction) and poetry by new and established writers for professional feedback. Quote:

“My Writing World is a specially created website, designed to let you share your writing. Whether you have never written before, or are an experienced author, this is a chance to contribute to an exciting new project, and receive valuable feedback from one of our on-line editorial experts.”

The winners of the Aventis Prizes for Science Books were announced last night in a webcast ceremony at The Royal Society’s headquarters in central London. The Aventis Prize celebrates the best books in popular science for both adults and children.

The 2005 General Prize winner for grown-up science books is: Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another by Philip Ball (William Heinemann) ISBN 0099457865 (£9.99) *IN THE LIBRARY*

The other five books on the General Prize shortlist were:
- The Ancestor’s Tale by Richard Dawkins (Weidenfeld & Nicholson) ISBN 0297825038 (£25.00) *IN THE LIBRARY*
- Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older by Douwe Draaisma (Cambridge University Press) ISBN 0521834244 (£19.99) *IN THE LIBRARY*
- Matters of Substance: Drugs – and why everyone’s a user by Griffith Edwards (Penguin, Allen Lane) ISBN 0713996897 (£18.99)
- The Earth: An Intimate History by Richard Fortey (HarperCollins) ISBN 0006551378 (£9.99) *IN THE LIBRARY*
- The Human Mind by Robert Winston (Bantam Press/ Transworld Publishers) ISBN 0553816195 (£7.99)

The 2005 Junior Prize winner for science books aimed at under-14s and picked by under 14s, is: What Makes Me, Me? by Robert Winston (Dorling Kindersley) ISBN 140530359X (£9.99). Winston also had a book in the General category.

The other five books on the Junior Prize shortlist were:
- Kingfisher Knowledge: Endangered Planet by David Burnie (Kingfisher) ISBN 0753409623 (Rec. Price £7.99)
- Mysteries and Marvels of Science by Phillip Clarke, Laura Howell & Sarah Khan (Usborne) ISBN 0746062494 (£12.99)
- Leap Through Time: Earthquake by Nicholas Harris (Orpheus) ISBN 1901323803 (£4.99)
- Night Sky Atlas by Robin Scagell (Dorling Kindersley) ISBN 1405303093 (£12.99)
- Kingfisher Knowledge: Microscopic Life by Richard Walker (Kingfisher) ISBN 0753409232 (£7.99).

The Guardian’s Books web pages, already up with the news as usual, headlines its article: ‘Outsider scoops Aventis Prize’. So, presumably, an unexpected winner. Of the General Prize, that is - the Junior Prize, as usual, gets only a small mention towards the end.

Last year’s winners were, for the General Prize, A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson (Doubleday/Transworld) ISBN 0552997048 (£8.99) and, for the Junior Prize, Really Rotten Experiments by Nick Arnold & Tony De Saulles (Scholastic Children’s Books) ISBN 0439977355 (£4.99). The Aventis Prize site includes a list of all previous winners since the award’s inception as the ‘Science Book Prizes’ in 1988.