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Warwick Prize

January 24th, 2009 by badger

It’s not as fun watching how these prizes are awarded as it used to be, but this new Warwick Prize is an odd one, simply for being ecelectic. Here’s the shortlist:

Mad, Bad and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors from 1800 by Lisa Appignanesi (Virago)

The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed Bishop Gerardi? by Francisco Goldman (Atlantic Books)

Reinventing the Sacred by Stuart A Kauffman (Perseus – Basic Books)

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein (Penguin)

The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century by Alex Ross (4th Estate, HarperCollins)

Montano’s Malady by Enrique Vila-Matas (translator: Jonathan Dunne) (New Directions)

So what’s the unifying theme here? Complexity, they state.

The judges are an odd collection too, with sci-fi/fantasy writer China Miéville, translator and author Maureen Freely, and mathematician  Ian Stewart among them.1 No, I don’t recognize the other two. 2

More like this please.

  1. I’ve been meaning to read Flatterland for awhile, but completely forgot it. [↩]
  2. Ouch. Yes, i do. I’m ashamed not to have placed Stephen Mitchelmore’s name immediately. This Space is an excellent blog that I’ve been reading for years. Now i’m scrabbling to see if Maya Jaggi is someone else who has been lost to my notoriously spotty memory. [↩]

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 24th, 2009 at 7:49 am and is filed under books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

7 Responses to “Warwick Prize”

  1. Bill says:
    January 24, 2009 at 3:25 pm

    I’ve read the Vila-Matas and I own the Ross. I’ve got my eye on Goldman’s book as well.

  2. steve says:
    January 24, 2009 at 3:58 pm

    Didn’t you use to link to my blog? I’d heard of you anyway.

  3. Bill says:
    January 24, 2009 at 5:41 pm

    Steve: I think we may have had you on the blogroll (when we had a blogroll), and I’m certain that we’ve linked to you in individual posts from time to time.

    I’ve read This Space religiously for quite some time. One of the better blogs out there, imo.

  4. steve says:
    January 25, 2009 at 11:24 am

    Thanks Bill. If it isn’t obvious, I asked because you didn’t recognise my name on the list of judges.

  5. Bill says:
    January 25, 2009 at 5:37 pm

    Ah! My partner in crime is the author of the post and apparently didn’t make the connection (I’m actually not sure if he reads This Space or not…)!

    Sorry for the confusion.

  6. badger says:
    January 26, 2009 at 9:03 am

    That’s MY fault, Steve. I have been subscribed to This Space via RSS for quite some time…. maybe years. It’s sad that i remember blog names better than those of people. Yes, i remember clearly now.

    Sincere apologies.

  7. Jean-Louise says:
    January 26, 2009 at 11:36 am

    Just discovered your blog. Love it! Thanks.

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