2006 in literature

The year 2006 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Books

Literature

*"Against the Day" (November 21) - Thomas Pynchon
*"Black Girl / White Girl" - Joyce Carol Oates
*"Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures" - Vincent Lam
*"The Children's Hospital" (August 28) - Chris Adrian
*"De Niro's Game" - Rawi Hage
*"Entre les murs" - François Bégaudeau
*"House of Meetings" - Martin Amis
*"jPod" - Douglas Coupland
*"Julius Winsome" - Gerard Donovan
*"The Law of Dreams" - Peter Behrens
*"Lullabies for Little Criminals" - Heather O'Neill
*"Miss Webster and Chérif" - Patricia Duncker
*"Moral Disorder" - Margaret Atwood
*"Only Revolutions" - Mark Z. Danielewski
*"The Song of Kahunsha" - Anosh Irani
*"Stet" (January 7) - James Chapman
*"Talk Talk" - T. C. Boyle
*"Terrorist" (June 6) - John Updike
*"The View from Castle Rock" - Alice Munro
*"" (October 25) - Dave Eggers

Adventure and thriller

*"The Archimedes Effect" (February 7) - Tom Clancy

Children's and young adult

*"Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony" (September 12) - Eoin Colfer (fifth in the Artemis Fowl series)
*"The Book Thief" (March 14) - Markus Zusak
*"The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" - John Boyne
*"Black Swan Green" (April 11) - David Mitchell
*"Blood Fever" (January 1) - Charlie Higson (second in the Young James Bond series)
*"The End" (October 13) - Lemony Snicket (13th in A Series of Unfortunate Events)
*"Escape from the Carnivale: a Never Land Book" (September 1) - Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson
*"Freeglader" (US) (February 28) - Paul Stewart (eighth in The Edge Chronicles) fantasy
*"Peter and the Shadow Thieves" (July 15) - Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
*"Ptolemy's Gate" - Jonathan Stroud
*"The Quillan Games" (May 16) - D. J. MacHale
*"The Riddle of the Poisoned Monk" (September 1) - Sarah Matthias
*"Wintersmith" (October 1) - Terry Pratchett (third in the Tiffany Aching series)
*"Sir Thursday" (March 1) - Garth Nix (fourth in the Keys to the Kingdom series)

Fantasy

*"Bec" (October 2) - Darren Shan (fourth in The Demonata series)
*"The Blade Itself" (May 4) - Joe Abercrombie (first in The First Law series)
*"The Blood Knight" (July 11) - Gregory Keyes (third in The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone series)
*"The Bonehunters" (March 1) - Steven Erikson (sixth in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series)
*"Brother Odd" (November 28) - Dean Koontz (third in the "Odd Thomas" series)
*"The Chalice of Life" (December 31) - Karen Anne Webb (first in the Adventurers of the Carotian Union series
*"Dark Side of the Moon" (May 30) - Sherrilyn Kenyon (15th in the Dark-Hunter Series)
*"Demon Thief" (June 7) - Darren Shan (second in The Demonata series)
*"Flyte" (March 1) - Angie Sage (second in the Septimus Heap series)
*"The Lies of Locke Lamora" (June 27) - Scott Lynch (first in the Gentleman Bastards series)
*"Mistral's Kiss" (December 12) - Laurell K. Hamilton (fifth in the Merry Gentry series)
*"Phantom" (July 18) - Terry Goodkind (10th in the Sword of Truth series)
*"Piratica II" - Tanith Lee (second in The Piratica Series)
*"School's Out — Forever" (May 23) - James Patterson (second in the Maximum Ride series)
*"" (August 8) - Jeff VanderMeer
*"Slawter" (November 1) - Darren Shan (third in The Demonata series)
*"The Thousandfold Thought" (January 20) - R. Scott Bakker (third in the Prince of Nothing trilogy)

Historical fiction

*"Knights of the Black and White" (August 8) - Jack Whyte (first in the Templar Trilogy)
*"The Lords of the North" - Bernard Cornwell
*"Mission Accomplished (Novel)" (November 6) - Patrick S. Johnston
*"The Night Watch" (March 23) - Sarah Waters
*"Racists" - Kunal Basu
*"Sharpe's Fury" - Bernard Cornwell
*"Soldier of Sidon" (October 31) - Gene Wolfe (third book in the Soldier series)
*"Temeraire" (January 7) - Naomi Novik
*"Thirteen Moons" (October 3) - Charles Frazier
*"The Vengeance of Rome" (January 5) - Michael Moorcock (fourth in the Pyat Quartet)

Horror

*"Beach Road" (May 1) - James Patterson & Peter de Jonge
*"Book of Legion" (October 31) - Victor Heck
*"Cell" (January 24) - Stephen King
*"A Darkness Inbred" (January 20) - Victor Heck
*"Downward Spiral" (November 27) - Victor Heck
*"Lisey's Story" (October 24) - Stephen King
*"Teatro Grottesco" - Thomas Ligotti
*"Evermore" - edited by James Robert Smith and Stephen Mark Rainey

Humor, satire

*"Company" (January 17) - Max Barry
*"Chart Throb" - Ben Elton
*"The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster" (March 28) - Bobby Henderson
*"The Alphabet of Manliness" (June) - Maddox
*"Nature Girl" (November 14) - Carl Hiaasen

Mystery, suspense, thriller, espionage and crime fiction

*"The Act of Roger Murgatroyd" - Gilbert Adair
*"At Risk" (May 23) - Patricia Cornwell (first in the At Risk series)
*"Blow the House Down" a novel, (May 30) - Robert Baer
*"Book of the Dead" (October 24) - Patricia Cornwell (15th in the Kay Scarpetta series)
*"The Cold Moon" (May 30) - Jeffery Deaver (seventh in the Lincoln Rhyme series)
*"Cross" (November 14) - James Patterson (12th in the Alex Cross series)
*"The Eagle" (December 26) - Jack Whyte (ninth in the Camulod Chronicles series)
*"Echo Park" (October 9) - Michael Connelly
*"The 5th Horseman" (February 13) - James Patterson & Maxine Paetro
*"The Grave Tattoo" (February 6) - Val McDermid
*"Hannibal Rising" (December 5) - Thomas Harris (fourth in the Hannibal Lecter series)
*"The Husband" (May 30) - Dean Koontz
*"Judge & Jury" (July 31) - James Patterson
*"Kamikaze" (November 7) - Michael Slade
*"More Twisted" - (December 16) - Jeffery Deaver
*"Two Little Girls in Blue" - Mary Higgins Clark
*"Mask Market" - Andrew Vachss
*"The Shape Shifter" (November 1) - Tony Hillerman (12th in the Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee series)
*"" - Samantha Weinberg
*"Treasure of Khan" (December 5) - Clive Cussler
*"The Water Wolf" (October 3) - Thomas Sullivan
*"Wild Fire (novel)" (November 6) - Nelson DeMille

Romance

*"Darkfever" (October 31) - Karen Marie Moning
*"Dear John" (October 30) - Nicholas Sparks
*"H.R.H." (October 31) - Danielle Steel

cience fiction

*"Betrayal" (May 30) - Aaron Allston (first in the Legacy of the Force series)
*"Blindsight" (October 3) - Peter Watts
*"Bloodlines" (August 29) - Karen Traviss (second in the Legacy of the Force series)
*"Born in Death" (November 7) - J. D. Robb (23rd in the "In Death" series)
*"From Black Rooms" (October 31) - Stephen Woodworth (fourth in the "Violet" series), alternate history crime novel
*"" - Masamune Shirow
*"Glasshouse" (June 27) - Charles Stross
*"Infoquake" (July 5) - David Louis Edelman (first in the Jump 225 trilogy)
*"Outbound Flight" (January 31) - Timothy Zahn
*": a Novel of the New Republic" (September 26) - Drew Karpyshyn
*"The Plot to Save Socrates" (February 6) - Paul Levinson
*"The Road" (September 26) - Cormac McCarthy
*"" - Karen Traviss (second in the series)
*"Tempest" - Troy Denning
*"Three Days to Never" (August 1) - Tim Powers
*"Ultraviolet" (March 1) - Yvonne Navarro

New drama

*Salvatore Antonio - "In Gabriel's Kitchen"
*Howard Brenton - "In Extremis"
*Richard Greenberg - "Three Days of Rain"
*David Lindsay-Abaire - "Rabbit Hole"
*Martin McDonagh - "The Lieutenant of Inishmore"

Poetry

"See 2006 in poetry"

Non-fiction

*Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme - "My Life in France"
*Deborah Davis - "Party of the Century"
*Alain de Botton - "The Architecture of Happiness"
*Wayne Federman (with Terrill and Maravich) - "MARAVICH": The Definitive biography of Pistol Pete Maravich.
*Peter Ford and Christopher Nickens -"Glenn Ford: A Life in Film"
*Al Gore - "An Inconvenient Truth"
*Glenn Greenwald - "How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok"
*John Grisham - "The Innocent Man"
*Hywel Williams - "Days That Changed the World: the 50 Defining Events of World History"
*John McQuaid & Mark Schleifstein -"Path of Destruction: the Devastation of New Orleans and the Coming Age of Superstorms"
*Larry Miller - ""
*Max and Monique Nemni - ""
*Richard Sennett - "The Culture of the New Capitalism"
*James Sites - "Inger!"

hort stories

Out of 40 stories published in both of these two annual anthologies, stories from "The New Yorker" are represented eight times, "" four times, "Tin House" and "One Story" three times each, and all of these magazines had stories in both collections.

Best American Short Stories 2006

Of 20 stories, four came from "The New Yorker", three from "" and two each from "The Paris Review", "Ploughshares", "Tin House" and "One Story".

O. Henry Prize stories

Of this year's 20 stories, four came from "The New Yorker", four from "Epoch", and two each from "Harper's Magazine", "One Story" and "The Georgia Review"

* * Full title: "Letters in the Snow—for kind strangers and unborn children—for the ones lost and most beloved"
* ** "Juror favorites"

Deaths

* January 4 - Irving Layton, age 93, Canadian poet
* January 16 - Jan Mark, 62, British children's writer
* January 30 - Wendy Wasserstein, 55, American playwright
* February 2 - Chris Doty, 39, dramatist
* February 4 - Betty Friedan, 85, feminist writer
* February 8 - Michael Gilbert, 93, British crime writer
* February 11 - Peter Benchley, 65, American novelist
* February 17 - Sybille Bedford, 94, novelist and non-fiction wirter
* February 20 - Lucjan Wolanowski, 86, Polish writer, journalist and traveller
* February 21 - Gennadiy Aygi, 71, Chuvashian poet and translator
* February 21 - Theodore Draper, 93, historian
* February 22 - Hilde Domin, 96, German writer
* February 24 - Octavia E. Butler, 59, American science fiction writer
* February 25 - Margaret Gibson, 57, Canadian novelist and short story writer
* March 27 - Stanisław Lem, 84, Polish science fiction writer
* March 30 - John McGahern, 73, novelist, dramatist and short story writer
* April 6 - Leslie Norris, age 84, Anglo-Welsh poet and author
* April 13 - Muriel Spark, 88, novelist
* April 25 - Jane Jacobs, 89, urban planning critic and activist
* May 9 - Jerzy Ficowski, 81, poet, writer and translator
* May 17 - Clare Boylan, 58, Irish novelist
* May 18 - Gilbert Sorrentino, 77, novelist and poet
* June 17 - James McClure, age 66, crime writer
* June 17 - Mickey Spillane, 88, crime writer
* June 28 - Nigel Cox, 55, New Zealand novelist
* June 28 - David Gemmell, 57, British fantasy novelist
* August 21 - S. Yizhar, 89, Israeli novelist
* August 30 - Naguib Mahfouz, 94, Egyptian novelist, winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature
* September 1 - György Faludy, 95, Hungarian poet, writer and translator
* September 4 - Colin Thiele, 85, Australian children's author
* September 25 - John M. Ford, 49, American science fiction writer and poet
* November 1 - William Styron, age 81, American novelist
* November 4 - Nelson S. Bond, 97, American writer
* November 9 - Ellen Willis, 64, American journalist and critic
* November 10 - Jack Williamson, 98, American science fiction author
* November 13 - G. Gordon Strong, 92, Canadian-American publisher
* November 15 - George G. Blackburn MC,90, Canadian author of "Guns of Normandy"
* November 23 - Jesús Blancornelas, 70, Mexican journalist, founding editor of "Zeta" magazine
* November 23 - Richard Clements, 78, British journalist
* November 23 - Richard Leopold, 94, American historian
* November 24 - William Diehl, 81, American author ("Primal Fear", "Sharky's Machine")
* November 24 - Phyllis Fraser, 90, American actress, writer, and publisher
* November 24 - Mostafa Mesbahzadeh, 98, exiled Iranian newspaper publisher
* November 24 - George W. S. Trow, 63, American writer and media critic
* November 27 - Bebe Moore Campbell, 56, Negro author ("What You Owe Me")

Awards

* Nobel Prize in Literature: Orhan Pamuk
* James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Cormac McCarthy, "The Road"
* James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Byron Rogers, "The Man Who Went into the West: The life of R.S. Thomas"
* The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Belinda Castles, "The River Baptists"
* Compton Crook Award: Maria Snyder, "Poison Study"
* C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: John Tranter, "Urban Myths: 210 Poems"
* Eric Gregory Award: Fiona Benson, Retta Bowen, Frances Leviston, Jonathan Morley, Eoghan Walls
* 2006 Governor General's Awards: see article
* Griffin Poetry Prize: Sylvia Legris, "Nerve Squall" and Kamau Brathwaite, "Born to Slow Horses"
* Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Jaya Savige, "Latecomers"
* Man Booker Prize: Kiran Desai for "The Inheritance of Loss."
* Miles Franklin Award: Roger McDonald, "The Ballad of Desmond Kale"
*Premio Nadal: Eduardo Lago, "Llámame Brooklyn"
* Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Fleur Adcock
* Scotiabank Giller Prize: Vincent Lam, "Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures"
* Wallace Stevens Award: Michael Palmer
* Whiting Writers' Awards:
**Poetry: Sherwin Bitsui, Tyehimba Jess, Suji Kwock Kim
**Fiction: Charles D’Ambrosio, Yiyun Li, Micheline Aharonian Marcom, Nina Marie Martínez, Patrick O’Keeffe
**Plays: Stephen Adly Guirgis, Bruce Norris

ee also

* Literature
* Poetry
* List of years in poetry
* List of literary awards
* List of poetry awards