The Toon Man Booker 2011

Toon Man Booker

Next week Newcastle City Libraries will be celebrating the announcement of the shortlist for this year’s Man Booker Prize by launching its own Toon Man Booker.

1 September 2011

Newcastle City Libraries has been celebrating the Man Booker Prize with its own Toon Man Booker.

The city libraries invited members and visitors to pick up copies of any of the shortlisted books after the announcement of the list on Tuesday, 6 September.

Each of the six books were available to reserve at libraries across the city, and then people voted for their favourite at libraries, the Theatre Royal or the Laing Art Gallery.

The votes were counted and the result of the public vote was announced at a gala evening at the City Library on Tuesday, 18 October from 6pm, the same night the winner of this year's Man Booker Prize. Unfortunately there was no cash prize of £50,000 but the winning author was sent a copy of ‘The Library Book' which is about the building of Newcastle City Library.

During the event each book was championed by library staff, book sellers and reading group members and, following passionate debate and voting, the winner of the Toon Man Booker was announced.

Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman was selected as the overall victor - heralded as being a positive and uplifting reading experience.

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Newcastle City Libraries Toon Man Booker Prize, supported by Waterstones, aims to promote a life long love of reading by exploring different themes and trying new genres.

Kerry Bossons, Newcastle City Libraries Reading and Learning Manager, said: "The Man Booker Prize is one of literatures most important and exciting awards and we thought it would be interesting to see if book lovers in Newcastle agree with the judges' decision for this year's prize. Each book will create passionate debate and we are looking forward to seeing the results of our Toon themed award. We are also excited to see what our library members really think about this year's shortlisted books with the announcement of the public award."