The finalists for the 2008 Thurber Prize for American Humor (for books published in CY 2007) have been announced:

Larry Doyle for I Love You, Beth Cooper, HarperCollins

Judge Firoozeh Dumas (Laughing Without an Accent and Funny in Farsi) says,

Clearly Larry Doyle was not the BOMC (“Big Man on Campus” for those of you who have suppressed the Eighties.) Had Larry been cool, he could have never written I Love You, Beth Cooper, a hilarious yet painfully accurate account of high school in all its pimply glory.

Patricia Marx for Him He Him Again The End of Him, S&S

Judge Robert Kaplow (The Cat Who Killed Lillian Jackson Braun: A Parody, and Me and Orson Welles: A Novel, among others) says,

…the care and exactness of language itself elevates the story into something more artful than simply a comic novel. There is a real sense of a complicated and contradictory human being, and it infuses every page of the novel.

 

Simon Rich for Ant Farm, Random House

Judge Christopher Buckley says the book is notable “for its youth and freshness and impertinence,” and Jon Stewart, the 2006 winner, called the book “hilarious.”

The winner will be announced Oct. 6.

Previous winners are:

• 1997  Ian Frazier for Coyote vs. Acme
• 1999  The editorial staff of The Onion for Our Dumb Century
• 2001  David Sedaris for Me Talk Pretty One Day
• 2004  [prize became annual] Christopher Buckley for No Way to Treat a First Lady
• 2005  Jon Stewart, Ben Karlin and David Javerbaum for America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction.
• 2006  Alan Zweibel for The Other Shulman
• 2007  Joe Keenan for My Lucky Star

The Gargoyle appears at #14 (tied with #13) on the 8/24 NYT Fiction Bestseller list, joining the other debut fiction titles that have enjoyed pre-pub media attention this summer:

• #3 The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, rising from #5 after two weeks on the list
• #6 The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, down from #4 last week, its first dip after rising steadily up the list for the last nine weeks
• #7 The Lace Reader, its second week at #7
• #14 The Gargoyle, its first week on the list

The New York Times Book Review lets Princeton English professor Sophie Gee have at The Gargoyle in the 8/15 issue. She has a fine time picking apart the book’s inconsistencies and literary pretensions, but is less eloquent about the book’s appeal, 

As straight-up entertainment,The Gargoyle is so-so. It’s not exactly unputdownable, but it has enough unexplained details to remain interesting. Could it be true that Marianne lived in the 14th century, and how did she get to the present? Why does she now compulsively carve stone gargoyles in the basement of her house, and what have these grotesque physical forms to do with the hero’s own disfiguring burn scars? All fine questions, which build to a moderately satisfying conclusion.

If you care about such things, Entertainment Weekly is in the midst of counting down their selection of the 100 “New Book Classics” (titles pubbed in the last 25 years). They just released numbers 50 to 26.

They’ve also selected the “25 New Classic Book Covers,” including two from my favorite designer, Fred Marcellino, who is alas, no longer living:

All the lists are good fodder for book displays.

The International Association of Culinary Professional announced the winners of their annual Cookbook Awards on Friday night at their conference in New Orleans (I wonder if THEY get rubber chicken at the Awards Banquet?)

Since these titles were pubbed last year, you may have some on the shelves, making this a good opportunity for a display.

The Cookbook of the Year is an appropriate title for this time of environmental concern. It is also the winner in the Single Subject Category:

Fish Forever: The Definitive Guide to Understanding, Selecting, and Preparing Healthy, Delicious, and Environmentally Sustainable Seafood

Paul Johnson

• Hardcover: $34.95
• Publisher: Wiley (July 2, 2007)
• ISBN-10: 076458779X
• ISBN-13: 978-0764587795

Fish Forever is owned in 2/3 of the libraries I checked.

The only book in the other categories that is not owned (probably because, as a new edition, it was not reviewed prepub. Previous editions of this classic are owned widely) is the winner in the Wine, Beer or Spirits Category:

The World Atlas of Wine: Completely Revised and Updated, Sixth Edition

Hugh Johnson, Jancis Robinson

• Hardcover: $50.00
• Publisher: Mitchell Beazley, Distributed by Sterling (October 1, 2007)
• ISBN-10: 1845333012
• ISBN-13: 978-1845334147

The other winners are:
American Category

The Pastry Queen Christmas:

Big-hearted Holiday Entertaining, Texas Style

Rebecca Rather

• Hardcover: $32.50
• Publisher: Ten Speed Press (September 2007)
• ISBN-10: 1580087906
• ISBN-13: 978-158008790

Bread, Other Baking and Sweets Category

Local Breads: Sourdough and Whole-Grain Recipes from Europe’s Best Artisan Bakers

Daniel Leader and Lauren Chattman

• Hardcover: $35.00
• Publisher: W. W. Norton (August 13, 2007)
• ISBN-10: 0393050556
• ISBN-13: 978-039305055

Chefs and Restaurants & First Book: The Julia Child Award Categories

Morimoto: The New Art of Japanese Cooking

Masaharu Morimoto

• Hardcover: $40.00
• Publisher: DK Publishing (August 20, 2007)
• ISBN-10: 0756631238
• ISBN-13: 978-0756631239

Compilations Category

Chocolates and Confections: Formula, Theory, and Technique for the Artisan Confectioner

Peter P. Greweling

• Hardcover: $65.00
• Publisher: Wiley (March 6, 2007)
• ISBN-10: 0764588443
• ISBN-13: 978-0764588440

Food Photography and Styling Category

Good Spirits: Recipes, Revelations, Refreshments, and Romance, Shaken and Served with a Twist

A.J. Rathbun

• Hardcover: $29.95
• Publisher: Harvard Common Press (September 15, 2007)
• ISBN-10: 1558323368
• ISBN-13: 978-1558323360

Food Reference/Technical Category

Food: The History of Taste (California Studies in Food and Culture)

Paul Freedman

• Hardcover: $39.95
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (November 7, 2007)
• ISBN-10: 0520254767
• ISBN-13: 978-0520254763

General Category

Cook with Jamie: My Guide to Making You a Better Cook

Jamie Oliver

• Hardcover: $37.50
• Publisher: Hyperion (October 2, 2007)
• ISBN-10: 1401322336
• ISBN-13: 978-1401322335

Health and Special Diets Category

How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food

Mark Bittman and Alan Witschonke

• Hardcover: 1008 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (October 15, 2007)
• ISBN-10: 0764524836
• ISBN-13: 978-0764524837

Literary Food Writing Category

Julia Child (Penguin Lives)

Laura Shapiro

• Hardcover: $19.95
• Publisher: Viking Adult (April 5, 2007)
• ISBN-10: 0670038393
• ISBN-13: 978-0670038398

Jane Grigson Category

To Cork or Not To Cork: Tradition, Romance, Science, and the Battle for the Wine Bottle
George M. Taber

• Hardcover: $26.00
• Publisher: Scribner (October 9, 2007)
• ISBN-10: 0743299345
• ISBN-13: 978-074329934

The Pulitzer Prizes have just been announced. The winners in books are:

Fiction: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz (Riverhead Books)

History: What Hath God Wrought: the Transformation of America, 1815-1848, Daniel Walker Howe (Oxford University Press)

Biography: Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father, John Matteson (W.W. Norton)

Poetry (two winners): Time and Materials Robert Hass (Ecco/HarperCollins) and

Poetry: “Failure,” by Philip Schultz (Harcourt)

General Nonfiction:The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945, Saul Friedlander (HarperCollins)

The full list of winners is available at the AP site. Bob Dylan received a Special Citation!