01 October 2009

Best National Book Award Ever? You decide.

The National Book Foundation is taking votes on which National Book Award winner in fiction is superior over its 60-year history. By asking "140 writers across the country" (none of which were me, was it you?) they have drawn up a slate of six finalists, only one of which is still alive. Will Thomas Pynchon come out of obscurity if he wins?

Vote in the poll and you could win tickets to the awards in New York in November. You also get to see who has the most rabid fanbase! The battle could get heated.

2 comments:

Wade Garrett said...

Cool idea, poor execution. I think its kind of lame to have four of the six books be "the collected stories of one of the most celebrated authors in our nation's history." Most of those stories were published years before, and its hard to compare a collection to a stand-alone work like a novel.

Ellen said...

It is a little like comparing regular albums to greatest-hits albums. I wonder if they closed that loophole at some point to prevent those kind of story collections from becoming finalists in the first place.