Barnes & Noble's Discover Program Awards $35,000 to Six New Writers

Barnes & Noble Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the nation’s largest bookseller, announced this afternoon that Ben Fountain’s globetrotting short-story selection, Brief Encounters with Che Guevara (Ecco), and Eric Blehm’s thrilling mystery of a missing park ranger, The Last Season (HarperCollins), have been named the winners of the 14th annual "Discover Great New Writers Awards” for fiction and nonfiction, respectively. Each writer was awarded a cash prize of $10,000, and a full year of additional marketing and advertising support. Turkish writer O. Z. Livaneli’s novel, Bliss (St. Martin’s Press), and Daniel Mendelsohn’s memoir, The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million (HarperCollins), took second place in fiction and nonfiction, respectively, and each received $5,000. Sam Savage’s first novel, Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife (Coffee House Press), and Marilyn Johnson’s exploration of a literary art form, The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries (HarperCollins), received third-place honors with a $2,500 prize for each. The awards were presented this afternoon at a private ceremony, and the winners and finalists will read from their work tonight, February 28, at 7:00 p.m. at the Lincoln Triangle Barnes & Noble (1972 Broadway at 66th Street) in New York City. This year’s fiction jurists were Mohsin Hamid, the author of the novel Moth Smoke, and a forthcoming second novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist; Lily King, the author of The English Teacher, whose first novel, The Pleasing Hour, won the Discover Award in 1999; and Marcus Stevens, the author of the novels The Curve of the World and Useful Girl. Brief Encounters with Che Guevara, Ben Fountain’s fiction debut, is truly ambitious literary fiction – each story involving well-intentioned Western protagonists abroad caught up in social upheaval and moral quandaries. Fiction jurist Lily King offered the following comment on the prizewinner: "Each of [his] stories lures the reader in so quickly and deeply with its unexpected circumstances, humor, narrative pull, and stunning sentences that the end comes as a sudden shock. Each time, Ben Fountain managed to convince me that I was reading a novel. These stories are playful, ironic, and serious, written by a new writer with innumerable skills.” This year’s nonfiction judges included Da Chen, the author of Colors of the Mountain and the novel Brothers; Mary Pipher, the bestselling author of Reviving Ophelia, and most recently, Writing to Change the World, among other publications; and Mary Roach, the bestselling author of the books Stiff and Spook. The Last Season is Eric Blehm’s mesmerizing tale of a seasoned park ranger who goes missing after 28 years of service in the unforgiving backcountry of the Sierra Nevada. Nonfiction jurist Mary Pipher offered this comment on the nonfiction prizewinner: "For a book to be truly great, it must be about something much larger than its content. It must point readers towards life’s deepest themes and brush up against the universal. Blehm’s book is not only a carefully researched, well-written biography of an amazing man; it is also a page-turning mystery. But it transcends its story by exploring what it means to spend one’s life in the wilderness in the last half of the twentieth century. Randy Morgenson’s life helps us see what we’re missing and broadens our sense of what it means to be human.” The 2006 Discover Awards honor the works of exceptionally talented writers featured in the Barnes & Noble "Discover Great New Writers” program during the 2006 calendar year. Last year, the Discover Great New Writers program featured the work of 66 previously unheralded fiction and non-fiction writers. About Barnes & Noble, Inc. Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller and a Fortune 500 company, operates 801 bookstores in 50 states. For the fifth year in a row, the company is the nation’s top retail brand for quality, according to the EquiTrend® Brand Study by Harris Interactive®. Barnes & Noble conducts its online business through Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com), one of the Web’s largest e-commerce sites and the number one online bookseller for quality among e-commerce companies, according to the latest EquiTrend survey. General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained via the Internet by visiting the company’s corporate Web site: http://www.barnesandnobleinc.com.