‘I believed it’: John Banville was told he won 2019 Nobel Prize in hoax call

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The organisers of the Nobel Prize for Literature are investigating a hoax phone call informing the Irish author John Banville that he was to receive this year’s award.

Banville received a call, which appeared to come from the Swedish Academy’s offices, telling him he was one of two winners about half an hour before Thursday’s ceremony in Stockholm announcing the recipients of this year’s prize.

Lês fierder by The Irish TimesLês fierder

What I learned from my year of reading outside the box

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Paris during the Easter holidays, I was so absorbed in a novel that I stopped concentrating on the two overly excited children in my care

I ended up reading 151 books in six months. The dizziness of this experience was compounded by the extent to which I was travelling in real life. Stephen King once said that books are a uniquely portable form of magic, but – determined to read the old-fashioned way – I found myself lugging a heavy load of them around. Filming in Brazil, Senegal and Jamaica, for example, I checked in extra suitcases full of books, unwilling to put any limits on how many I might get through on each journey.… Lês fierder