Book Awards on TV

Not long ago, I contemplated writing an article about why major book awards — think the National Book Awards or Canada’s Giller Prize — really need to emulate more celebrity-esque type shindigs like the Oscars or the Golden Globes. Well, up to a point, because now all of them are boring, but there’s something perversely appealing about critiquing, say, Philip Roth’s sartorial style or Marilynne Robinson’s sense of dress…

Well, now it looks like we might have that chance with the unveiling of the Quill Awards:

To

promote literacy and energize the book industry, Reed Business

International and NBC Universal Television Stations announced plans

Wednesday for a new national book award, called the Quill Awards, to be

decided by the general public voting online and in bookstores.

Organizers

and leaders within the publishing industry said they hope the Quills

will generate excitement about books and fill an important niche.

“There are no consumer-driven awards that acknowledge the power and

importance of the written word,” NBC Universal president Jay Ireland

said in a statement.

There

will be 15 award categories, including book of the year, rookie of the

year, best book to film and graphic novel of the year.

The awards will be presented in October, with a ceremony to be televised on NBC Universal’s stations.

MobyLives has lots, lots more on the Quills and about the confusion that’s already set in: is it for-profit, as put forward by Michael Cader in yesterday’s Publisher’s Lunch, or not, as Edward Wyatt’s New York Times article seems to suggest?

And more importantly, who gets to hang out on the red carpet and ask the authors and industry types incredibly stupid questions so that we can get a nice, nasty fight on TV? And who will report on the after-party drunken proceedings for PAGE SIX the next day?