Emma Donoghue’s Room wins Evergreen Award

Emma Donoghue’s novel Room (HarperCollins Canada) has won the 2011 Evergreen Award, to be presented on Feb. 3, 2012, in Toronto.

The Evergreen Award is administered by the Ontario Library Association as part of the Forest of Reading program, designed to expose adult library users to Canadian fiction and non-fiction. Library patrons are invited to vote for their favourite of 10 nominated titles.

“I am thrilled that with this award, Room will be part of such a valuable initiative to promote reading,” Donoghue said in a press release.

The other nominees for the prize were:

• The Night Shift, by Brian Goldman (HarperCollins Canada)
• Amphibian, by Carla Gunn (Coach House Books)
• Dahanu Road, by Anosh Irani (Doubleday Canada)
• Death Spiral, by James W. Nichol (McArthur & Company)
• Far to Go, by Alison Pick (House of Anansi Press)
• Still Missing, by Chevy Stevens (St. Martin’s Press)
• A Man in Uniform, by Kate Taylor (Doubleday Canada)
• The Tiger, by John Vaillant (Knopf Canada)
• Annabel, by Kathleen Winter (House of Anansi Press)

Jessica Grant wins Evergreen Award

St. John’s author Jessica Grant‘s Come, Thou Tortoise (Vintage Canada) has won the 2010 Evergreen Award, part of the Ontario Library Association’s Forest of Reading program. The award is voted on by readers, and Grant’s book was chosen from a list of 10 nominees. The award will be presented at the OLA Super Conference on Feb. 4.

The unstoppable Book of Negroes

At this point, you gotta wonder: has anyone in Canada not read Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes? Released by HarperCollins Canada more than two years ago, the book has grown from a solid word-of-mouth sleeper to an out-and-out sales juggernaut, and it doesn’t look to be slowing down anytime soon. Not only was it recently chosen as one of the 2009 CBC Canada Reads selections, but Ontario Library patrons have just picked it as the winner of the Evergreen Award for most popular book of 2008. Oh, and Trent University has selected it for its 2009 Trent Reads initiative, which encourages every student to read and discuss the book.