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Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Judging Book Awards

If like me, you've ever wondered how a judge can read all the books eligible for an award then a paragraph in Kate Muir's latest column in The Times reveals how one person did it (or not in fact):
Indeed, it turns out that even people judging book prizes don’t read. I talked to someone who judged one of our grander prizes last year and he said: “Of course you don’t have time. You tip the boxes of books out on the floor, put the names you know in a pile, and then you do the first-and-last chapter test on the rest. You only really read the shortlist. We have day jobs too, you know.”

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:47 pm

    I really hope the fact that it's April the 1st bears some relevance here!

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  2. Well the column was in last week's Saturday supplement...

    I'd love to know more about how the shortlists are chosen. You'd have to read a book a day, not easy with full time work!

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  3. I sometimes wonder if those that write the flap notes and blurbs ever read the books.
    Time and again there are errors that show they have flipped through a few pages at best.

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