As someone who is always searching for new books to add to a reading list that will never be finished, I often turn to literary prizes to see what reading treats I might add to the list. The month of October is already a bonanza with two prestigious literary awards announced just this week: The Nobel Prize for Literature and The Man Booker Prize.

• The Swedish Academy awarded Romanian-German author Herta Müller the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature in recognition of her entire body of work. The Academy's secretary, Peter Englund, commenting on why Müller was chosen, noted that "She is outstanding. Her language is superb, she is extremely precise in her words - and she has something to say. She tells about homelessness and alienation, what it is like to belong to a language minority and how people survive under dictatorship." He recommends her novel, The Appointment, as a starting point for readers new to her work.

• English novelist Hilary Mantel received The Man Booker Prize this year for her novel Wolf Hall, a fictional account of events surrounding the machinations of Thomas Cromwell, chief advisor to Henry VIII. Each year, the Man Booker Prize honors the best novel written by a citizen of the British Commonwealth or Ireland.

Looks like my list just got longer!

--Martha Lundin, editorial associate

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