The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas voted 2009 Penguin Orange Readers' Group Book of the Year

John Boyne’s novel, The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, (Black Swan) has been voted the Penguin Orange Readers’ Group Book of the Year.

Votes were collected via the Spinebreakers website and from people entering the 2009 Penguin Orange Readers’ Group Prize. The award had previously been won by Khaled Hosseini’s, The Kite Runner, which remarkably claimed the top spot three years in a row.

The three favourite reading group books are:

1 The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, John Boyne, Black Swan

2 Twilight, Stephenie Meyer, ATOM

3 Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger, Penguin

Author John Boyne said, “"I'm thrilled that The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas has been selected as the Penguin Orange Readers' Group Book of the Year. From the day the novel was published, it has received extraordinary support from reading groups who debate the novel back and forth with all the passion and argument that good literature demands - I know, because I've been there for some of those debates! That the story of Bruno and Shmuel continues to move readers is a source of great encouragement to me as a writer. I'm very grateful to Penguin and Orange and all the readers who selected the novel for this prize."

The Penguin Orange Readers’ Group Prize

Now in its eighth year, the prize is the UK’s only annual award for reading groups and forms part of Orange’s portfolio of literary partnerships. This year, individuals were asked to demonstrate how they had made reading social and submissions were made via the online book community www.spinebreakers.co.uk.

The 2009 Penguin Orange Readers’ Group Prize was awarded to Edinburgh student, Jen Campbell for her impressive online Book Club. It now has over 5,000 international members with a broad age range from 13 – 50, hailing from Australia to Finland.

For further information: www.spinebreakers.co.uk www.readersgroupprize.com

For further press information:

Naomi Li at M&C Saatchi: Tel: 0207 544 3687 Email: naomi.li@mcsaatchi.com

Notes to Editors:

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

Since its first publication in 2006, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas has sold over 5 million copies worldwide and has been published in over 40 languages. It has won two Irish Book Awards, was shortlisted for the British Book Award and reached No. 1 on the New York Times Bestsellers list. An award-winning Miramax film version, directed by Mark Herman, was released last year.

John Boyne was born in Ireland in 1971 and is the author of seven novels, including the recently published The House of Special Purpose.

Transworld Publishers has been a company of the Random House Group Ltd since 1999, and was Publisher of the Year in 1991, 1993 and 1995. We publish a range of bestselling fiction and non fiction titles under various different imprints.

Penguin

Penguin (www.penguin.co.uk) was established in 1935, is one of the world’s leading consumer publishing businesses and is part of Pearson plc, the international media company with market leading businesses in education, business information and consumer publishing. Penguin publishing comprises the Allen Lane, Fig Tree, Hamish Hamilton, Michael Joseph, Penguin, Penguin Classics, Puffin and Viking imprints.

Penguin has offices in 15 countries and runs over 50 reader and community websites, including www.spinebreakers.co.uk, the only online community for teenage book lovers, by teenage book lovers.

Penguin’s Reading Groups website www.penguin.co.uk/readers has been running since 2001 and supports tens of thousands of ‘real life’ book groups as well as facilitating virtual reading groups and online book discussions.

About Orange

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