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Greg Mortenson Receives Prestigious Jefferson Award for Public Service

Three Cups of Tea author Greg Mortenson received a Jefferson Award for Public Service for his 16 years of work promoting literacy and girls’ education. He was honored at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. on June 16th.

The Jefferson Awards, known in some circles as the “Nobel Prize” for community and public service, were started in 1972. This year, Mortenson was recognized in the national category of “greatest public service by a private citizen” alongside Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, who received a similar award for “greatest public service by an appointed official.”

Past recipients include former President Jimmy Carter, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and children’s rights’ advocate Marion Wright Edelman.
 

Penguin Audio's Armageddon in Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut Wins Audie Award

The Penguin Audio release of Kurt Vonnegut’s Armageddon in Retrospect took home a 2009 Audie Award in the Short Stories/Collection category. The exciting win was announced by the Audio Publishers Association at a recent gala at the New York Historical Society. Read by Academy-Award-nominated actor Rip Torn and Vonnegut’s son Mark, the posthumous Armageddon in Retrospect was honored as one of audio’s most engaging and innovative releases of the 2008 publishing year. Patti Pirooz, Executive Producer of Penguin Audio, produced the title.

The book is the only collection of unpublished Vonnegut works—reflections on war and peace—since his death in 2007. Visit the Audies website to read a review of the New York Times bestselling book, as well as listen to an audio sample.

View our feature on Armageddon in Retrospect.
 

Pictures at a Revolution Receives 2009 Theater Library Association Award

A unanimous jury selected Mark Harris' Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood (The Penguin Press) as the recipient of the 2009 Theatre Library Association (TLA) Award, which recognizes excellence in the field of film and recorded performance scholarship in books published in English during the previous calendar year.

Pictures at a Revolution is a New York Times bestseller that follows the film industry of the 1960s through upheaval, radicalization, and fascinating change; the awards ceremony will be held at Lincoln Center in New York this coming October.

Read an excerpt from Pictures at a Revolution.

Penguin Weekly Update, Literary Awards, Penguin Books