The award is decided by all booksellers across the country. Each year, every bookseller has the opportunity to nominate their favourite book published across all genres that year for the prize, and the ten most voted for make up to list of nominees. This year over 100 titles were suggested as nominees. From the ten nominated books, each bookseller will vote again to decide the winner, which will be announced November 11th.

Cocks by Erlend Loe

One morning, while taking a shower, Tander's penis simply falls off. It’s awkward. It’s inconvenient. It’s… quite a problem, to say the least.

He places it carefully in a box marked "Raspberries" and stores it in the freezer before cycling to the emergency room. Surely, someone must be able to reattach it? The doctors are fascinated, but unable to help. One even offers to buy it. Tander declines. He returns home without answers — and with some difficult questions. Should he tell his wife? Can he keep his job at the motor magazine? Has this happened to other men?

Cocks is a sharply funny story about loss, identity, and modern masculinity. With Erlend Loe’s signature absurdism and satire, it explores what it really means to be a man — and to be whole.

Praise for Cocks

«The author’s dry, witty style is perfect for absurd stories like this. […] This is fun. A lot of fun.»
Stavanger Aftenblad, five/six stars

«When did a novel last make me laugh out loud? I mean, outright hooting with laughter? […] t's the outrageously original connections Erlend Loe makes between the important and the unimportant that make the laughter burst forth.»
NRK, five/six stars

«He’s a worldclass artist, and he’s still going strong after all the books he’s written.»
Framtida

«Loe is funny, extremely funny.»
Dagbladet

«Loe is, as always, a funny writer. He writes with an ease you have to admire.»
VG

«Mundane, you may think? Remember that this is one of Norway’s craziest writing minds, who regularly pumps out main characters with champagne problems you never would have been able to imagine.»
Bok365

«Only Loe can come up with something so crazy and original – here is enough material to cure a light autumn depression. […] Loe writes amusingly in a wild and lush language.»
Adresseavisa