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

Books

Literature

• Chris Adrian - The Children's Hospital (August 28)

• Segun Afolabi - A Life Elsewhere

• Martin Amis - House of Meetings

• Margaret Atwood - Moral Disorder

• François Bégaudeau - Entre les murs

• Peter Behrens - The Law of Dreams

• T. C. Boyle - Talk Talk

• James Chapman - Stet (January 7)

• Tom Clancy - The Archimedes Effect (February 7)

• Douglas Coupland - jPod

• Mark Z. Danielewski - Only Revolutions

• Gerard Donovan - Julius Winsome

• Patricia Duncker - Miss Webster and Chérif

• Dave Eggers - What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng (October 25)

• Rawi Hage - De Niro's Game

• Anosh Irani - The Song of Kahunsha

• Vincent Lam - Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures

• Alice Munro - The View from Castle Rock

• Joyce Carol Oates - Black Girl / White Girl

• Heather O'Neill - Lullabies for Little Criminals

• Carolyn Parkhurst - Lost and Found

• Thomas Pynchon - Against the Day (November 21)

• John Updike - Terrorist (June 6)

Children's and young adult fiction

• Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson - Peter and the Shadow Thieves (July 15)

• John Boyne - The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

• Eoin Colfer - Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony (September 12) (fifth in the Artemis Fowl series)

• Charlie Higson - Blood Fever (January 1) (second in the Young James Bond series)

• D. J. MacHale - The Quillan Games (May 16)

• David Mitchell - Black Swan Green (April 11)

• Robert Muchamore

• *Divine Madness (novel) (fifth in the CHERUB series)

• *Man vs Beast (sixth in the CHERUB series)

• Garth Nix - Sir Thursday (March 1) (fourth in the Keys to the Kingdom series)

• Terry Pratchett - Wintersmith (October 1) (third in the Tiffany Aching series)

• Lemony Snicket - The End (October 13) (13th in A Series of Unfortunate Events)

• Paul Stewart - Freeglader (US) (February 28) (eighth in The Edge Chronicles)

• Jonathan Stroud - Ptolemy's Gate

• Markus Zusak - The Book Thief (March 14)

Fantasy

• Joe Abercrombie - The Blade Itself (May 4) (first in The First Law series)

• R. Scott Bakker - The Thousandfold Thought (January 20) (third in the Prince of Nothing trilogy)

• Steven Erikson - The Bonehunters (March 1) (sixth in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series)

• Terry Goodkind - Phantom (July 18) (10th in the Sword of Truth series)

• Laurell K. Hamilton - Mistral's Kiss (December 12) (fifth in the Merry Gentry series)

• Sherrilyn Kenyon - Dark Side of the Moon (May 30) (15th in the Dark-Hunter Series)

• Gregory Keyes - The Blood Knight (July 11) (third in The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone series)

• Dean Koontz - Brother Odd (November 28) (third in the Odd Thomas series)

• Tanith Lee - Piratica II (second in The Piratica Series)

• Scott Lynch - The Lies of Locke Lamora (June 27) (first in the Gentleman Bastards series)

• James Patterson - School's Out — Forever (May 23) (second in the Maximum Ride series)

• Angie Sage - Flyte (March 1) (second in the Septimus Heap series)

• Darren Shan

• *Bec (October 2) (fourth in The Demonata series)

• *Demon Thief (June 7) (second in The Demonata series)

• *Slawter (November 1) (third in The Demonata series)

• Catherynne M. Valente - The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden (October 31) (first volume of The Orphan's Tales)

• Jeff VanderMeer - Shriek: An Afterword (August 8)

Historical fiction

• Kunal Basu - Racists

• Bernard Cornwell

• *The Lords of the North

• *Sharpe's Fury

• Charles Frazier - Thirteen Moons (October 3)

• Michael Moorcock - The Vengeance of Rome (January 5) (fourth in the Pyat Quartet)

• Naomi Novik - Temeraire (January 7)

• Sarah Waters - The Night Watch (March 23)

• Jack Whyte - Knights of the Black and White (August 8) (first in the Templar Trilogy)

• Gene Wolfe - Soldier of Sidon (October 31) (third book in the Soldier series)

Horror

• James Patterson & Peter de Jonge - Beach Road (May 1)

• Victor Heck - Downward Spiral (November 27)

• Stephen King

• *Cell (January 24)

• *Lisey's Story (October 24)

• Thomas Ligotti - Teatro Grottesco

• James Robert Smith and Stephen Mark Rainey (ed.) - Evermore

Humor, satire

• Max Barry - Company (January 17)

• Ben Elton - Chart Throb

• Bobby Henderson - The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (March 28)

• Maddox - The Alphabet of Manliness (June)

• Carl Hiaasen - Nature Girl (November 14)

Mystery & Crime

• Gilbert Adair - The Act of Roger Murgatroyd

• Robert Baer - Blow the House Down a novel, (May 30)

• Mary Higgins Clark - Two Little Girls in Blue

• Michael Connelly - Echo Park (October 9)

• Patricia Cornwell

• *At Risk (May 23) (first in the At Risk series)

• *Book of the Dead (October 24) (15th in the Kay Scarpetta series)

• Clive Cussler - Treasure of Khan (December 5)

• Jeffery Deaver

• *The Cold Moon (May 30) (seventh in the Lincoln Rhyme series)

• *More Twisted (December 16)

• Nelson DeMille - Wild Fire (November 6)

• Thomas Harris - Hannibal Rising (December 5) (fourth in the Hannibal Lecter series)

• Tony Hillerman - The Shape Shifter (November 1) (12th in the Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee series)

• Dean Koontz - The Husband (May 30)

• Val McDermid - The Grave Tattoo (February 6)

• James Patterson

• *Cross (November 14) (12th in the Alex Cross series)

• *Judge and Jury (July 31)

• James Patterson & Maxine Paetro - The 5th Horseman (February 13)

• Michael Slade - Kamikaze (November 7)

• Thomas Sullivan - The Water Wolf (October 3)

• Andrew Vachss - Mask Market

• Samantha Weinberg - Secret Servant: The Moneypenny Diaries

• Jack Whyte - The Eagle (December 26) (ninth in the Camulod Chronicles series)

Romance

• Karen Marie Moning - Darkfever (October 31)

• Nicholas Sparks - Dear John (October 30)

• Danielle Steel - H.R.H. (October 31)

Science fiction

• Aaron Allston - Betrayal (May 30) (first in the Legacy of the Force series)

• Troy Denning - Tempest

• David Louis Edelman - Infoquake (July 5) (first in the Jump 225 trilogy)

• Drew Karpyshyn - Path of Destruction: a Novel of the New Republic (September 26)

• Paul Levinson - The Plot to Save Socrates (February 6)

• Cormac McCarthy - The Road (September 26)

• Yvonne Navarro - Ultraviolet (March 1)

• Tim Powers - Three Days to Never (August 1)

• J. D. Robb - Born in Death (November 7) (23rd in the In Death series)

• Masamune Shirow - Ghost in the Shell 1.5: Human Error Processor

• Charles Stross - Glasshouse (June 27)

• Karen Traviss

• *Bloodlines (August 29) (second in the Legacy of the Force series)

• *Triple Zero (second in the Star Wars: Republic Commando series)

• Peter Watts - Blindsight (October 3)

• Stephen Woodworth - From Black Rooms (October 31) (fourth in the Violet series), alternate history crime novel

• Timothy Zahn - Outbound Flight (January 31)

New drama

• Salvatore Antonio - In Gabriel's Kitchen

• Jacob Appel - Arborophilia

• Howard Brenton - In Extremis

• John Cariani - Almost Maine

• Nilo Cruz - Beauty of the Father

• Brian Friel - Faith Healer

• Richard Greenberg - A Naked Girl on the Appian Way

• Rinne Groff - What Then

• Lisa Kron - Well

• Neil Labute - Fat Pig

• David Lindsay-Abaire - Rabbit Hole

• Martin McDonagh - The Lieutenant of Inishmore

• Itamar Moses - Bach at Leipzig

• Adam Rapp - Red Light Winter

Poetry

Non-fiction

• Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme - My Life in France

• Dan Culberson - An Atheist's Handbook

• Deborah Davis - Party of the Century

• Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion

• Alain de Botton - The Architecture of Happiness

• Alan Downs - The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

• 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

• Derrick Jensen - Endgame

• John McQuaid & Mark Schleifstein -Path of Destruction: the Devastation of New Orleans and the Coming Age of Superstorms

• Larry Miller - Spoiled Rotten America: Outrages of Contemporary Life

• Max and Monique Nemni - Young Trudeau: Son of Quebec, Father of Canada, 1919-1944

• Richard Sennett - The Culture of the New Capitalism

• James Sites - Inger!

• Hywel Williams - Days That Changed the World: the 50 Defining Events of World History

Short stories

Out of 40 stories published in both of these two annual anthologies, stories from The New Yorker are represented eight times, Zoetrope: All-Story 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 Zoetrope: All-Story 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 writer

• February 20 - Lucjan Wolanowski, 86, Polish writer, journalist and traveller

• February 21

• *Gennadiy Aygi, 71, Chuvashian poet and translator

• *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 28

• *Nigel Cox, 55, New Zealand novelist

• *David Gemmell, 57, British fantasy novelist

• July 17 - Mickey Spillane, 88, crime writer

• 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, 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

• *Richard Clements, 78, British journalist

• November 24

• *William Diehl, 81, American author (Primal Fear, Sharky's Machine)

• *Phyllis Fraser, 90, American actress, writer, and publisher

• *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

See also

• List of literary awards

• List of poetry awards

• 2006 in Australian literature