by Rachel Seigel --- As we gear up for a busy fall publishing season, we naturally start thinking about the fast-approaching awards season for books. A week or two ago, the longlist for the Scotia Bank Giller Prize was announced (the most prestigious Canadian literary award for fiction), and on September 11, the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize (The prize, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2008 after launching in 1969, aims to promote the finest in fiction by rewarding the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland.) was announced, and those are just the tip of the iceberg! In just about a month, the National Book Awards finalists will be announced, with the winner being announced in November. In Ontario, the shortlists for the k-12 provincial reading programs (fondly referred to as the "Tree Awards because each of the programs is named after a tree) will be announced in October, and in November, the Governor General Award for Literature, and the Canadian Children's Book Centre awards are announced at a black-tie gala that is growing in prestige and popularity each year. Recently, my boss and I also had a discussion about review journals, where he asked me to keep a running list of starred reviews (in addition to prize nominees/winners) to post on the company website for our library customers. This got me to thinking about the two separate categories we tend to place books (much like movies) in- Critical-Authors/books that get lots of review attention, but goes largely unnoticed by the masses vs Popular- books like
Critical vs. Popular
Critical vs. Popular
Critical vs. Popular
by Rachel Seigel --- As we gear up for a busy fall publishing season, we naturally start thinking about the fast-approaching awards season for books. A week or two ago, the longlist for the Scotia Bank Giller Prize was announced (the most prestigious Canadian literary award for fiction), and on September 11, the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize (The prize, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2008 after launching in 1969, aims to promote the finest in fiction by rewarding the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland.) was announced, and those are just the tip of the iceberg! In just about a month, the National Book Awards finalists will be announced, with the winner being announced in November. In Ontario, the shortlists for the k-12 provincial reading programs (fondly referred to as the "Tree Awards because each of the programs is named after a tree) will be announced in October, and in November, the Governor General Award for Literature, and the Canadian Children's Book Centre awards are announced at a black-tie gala that is growing in prestige and popularity each year. Recently, my boss and I also had a discussion about review journals, where he asked me to keep a running list of starred reviews (in addition to prize nominees/winners) to post on the company website for our library customers. This got me to thinking about the two separate categories we tend to place books (much like movies) in- Critical-Authors/books that get lots of review attention, but goes largely unnoticed by the masses vs Popular- books like