Andrew Nikiforuk's Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent has won the $10,000 Rachel Carson Environment Book Award, presented by the Society of Environmental Journalists. Nikiforuk, the first Canadian to win the prize, will be honored during an awards ceremony in the Concourse Hotel and Governor’s Club in Madison, Wis., on October 7, the first day of SEJ’s 19th annual conference.

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Finalists for this year's £10,000 (US$16,442) Forward prize for best collection of poetry are Rain by Don Paterson, A Scattering by Christopher Reid, Hide Now by Glyn Maxwell, One Secret Thing by Sharon Olds, Better than God by Peter Porter and West End Final by Hugo Williams.

The £5,000 Felix Dennis Prize for best first collection shortlist includes The Missing by Sian Hughes, The Striped World by Emma Jones, Moonrise by Meirion Jordan, Furniture by Lorraine Mariner, Natural Mechanical by J.O. Morgan and Halflife by Meghan O'Rourke. Paul Farley, Michael Longley, Robin Robertson, Elizabeth Speller, George Szirtes and C.K. Williams were shortlisted for the £1,000 Forward Prize for best single poem.

The Guardian reported that Josephine Hart, chair of this year's judges, said: "Poetry is language at its best, the highest literary art form, and increasingly people are turning in these challenging times to a place they can find wisdom and beauty and without wanting to sound too pious--truth. That's young people and old."