The following is a selection of suggested titles and resources:

[1] Title: Home

Author: Robinson, Marilynne

Summary: Glory Boughton, aged thirty-eight, has returned to Gilead to care for her dying father. Soon her brother, Jack–the prodigal son of the family, gone for twenty years–comes home too, looking for refuge and trying to make peace with a past littered with tormenting trouble and pain.

Call No.: English ROB (Also available as an audio book – Call No.: English ROB pt. 10CDs)

Availability: http://eservice.nlb.gov.sg/item_holding_s.aspx?bid=13089331

[2] Title: Balzac and the little seamstress

Author.: Dai, Sijie

Summary: At the height of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, two teenage boys are among thousands exiled to the countryside for “re-education.” The narrator and his best friend find themselves in a remote village where their only distractions are a violin and the beautiful daughter of the local tailor. But it is when they discover a hidden stash of Western classics in Chinese translation that their re-education takes its most surprising turn.

Call No.: English DAI (Also available as an audio book – Call No.: AV English DAI pt. 4CDs)

Availability: http://eservice.nlb.gov.sg/item_holding_s.aspx?bid=10368040

If you enjoyed this book, you may also wish to refer to the following resource list for read-alikes of this book:

Read Singapore 2008: read-alikes for The Namesake & Balzac and the Little Seamstress

[3] Title: Wolf Hall

Author: Mantel, Hilary

Call No.: English MAN

Availability: http://eservice.nlb.gov.sg/item_holding_s.aspx?bid=13187293

The following blog post on our book blog, High Browse Online  also provides more information on the book and other shortlisted titles for the prize: Hilary Mantel wins Man Booker Prize

You may also wish to read the works of the 2009 Man Booker International Prize winner, Alice Munro. The Man Booker International Prize “is awarded not for any particular work, but rather, the author’s “bodies of work” and the contribution made to “fiction on the world stage”.”

(Source: Alice Munro wins Man Booker International prize, retrieved from High Browse Online website)

Other resource lists on literary and award-winning fiction:

[1] A resource list on Nobel Prize Winners in Literature

[2] Winner of the 2009 Orange Prize for Fiction

Read the following blog post on our ASK! blog  for more information on the book:

Who won the 2009 Orange Prize for Fiction?

[3] There are many more fiction awards. A good one-stop resource for lists of literary fiction awards is the EBSCOHost Novelist e-database, available from our eResources website. A link to the lists of Award Winners is available at the left-hand navigation column under the Adults section once you enter Novelist.

All websites were last accessed on November 14, 2009.

If you intend to check the availability of any title before visiting our public libraries, you may do so via the online catalogue at: http://catalogue.nlb.gov.sg/

   Answered by Ms Lynn Koh, Librarian, Adult and Young People’s Services

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