The Pen Literary Awards were announced the other day. The winner of the Science Writing award was James Gleick for “The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood which I read about in August 2011. Yes, it deserves a prize. (There’s a blurb here which I condensed from my dot.mac site before Apple destroyed dot.mac.)
I love awards – I don’t believe they always give the top prize to the best book but I do believe that there are some books which need a bit of a push to get in front of the public. There are too many books out there (Hunger Games, Twilight) which absolutely don’t need any help with public attention. But books like “The Information,” (above) or some of the Booker nominees and the Pulitzer (most categories) most definitely do! I follow The National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle, Pulitzer Prize for fiction, the Dublin Literary Award, Nobel for Literature, Man Booker International, the Orange Prize for fiction– etc. – a list of Awards –
Just my thoughts as I read (reread) Eden’s Outcasts: Louisa May Alcott and Her Father by John Matteson.
Becky's Books - 
I think awards are useful guideposts too … I don’t slavishly follow them but I like to know who’s won the major Aussie awards, plus the Booker, Orange, Dublin Impac, Pulitzer, Giller … and of coruse the Nobel Prize for Literature!
LikeLike
I think my favorite is the Booker. The Pulitzer is probably for the most Americana with a reasonable literary component. (heh) I’m trying to read my way through the Nobel winners but that’s a long job.
LikeLike
The Miles Franklin and the Booker are mine. I’ve managed to read most of the winners of both of the last two decades, but not all, and I’ve rarel if ever been disappointed. Even if I might not have chosen some as the best I haven’t found them to be unworthy either of my time and attention.
LikeLike