Some authors are used to being famous. At readings, the big guns—Joan Didion, Philip Roth and even Anderson Cooper—are mobbed, with fans happily standing in bookstore aisles when all the seats are filled. Authors have their own awards, attended by the literary ruling class and various marketing experts. But as showbiz extravaganzas go, book awards were more like high tea than the celebrity blowouts—Oscars, Golden Globes, Emmys—Americans are accustomed to.
The way authors and books were seen changed last year when the Quill Awards, the first televised awards show for books, made its debut on NBC. Even authors from small presses, like actors in an independent movie—think Amy Adams, who rode a wave of critical support last year to win a Best Supporting Actress nomination for Junebug—had the chance to shine. In a star-studded ceremony at Manhattan's Chelsea Piers, the book world got what it has long deserved—its own Oscars.
The Quill Awards, voted by consumers and booksellers, celebrates the best the book industry has to offer. In more than a dozen categories, the Quills Nominating Council, comprised of leaders from the worlds of film, television, education, publishing and bookselling, selects the shortlists of nominees from among 175,000 titles that are later listed on Publishers Weekly'sWeb site. Readers can vote for the books they love online or at participating bookstores.
Like the Oscars, the Quills aim to generate sales for books, much in the way that the marketing departments at various film companies trot out Oscar nominations—or, better yet, awards won—to drive filmgoers into theaters. When a film cleans up at the Oscars, the box office follows suit. And since Hollywood relies so much on books for inspiration and for prestige films, it's time the book industry realized the potential of making books as celebrated as possible.
Quills hosts Al Roker, Jane Hanson and Brian Williams did just that. Roker and Hanson spoke with celebs like actor Matthew Modine and Court TV anchor Catherine Crier about their favorite books before the show began. (For the record, Modine's was The Old Man and the Sea, and Crier's nonsurprising choice was To Kill a Mockingbird.) Producers lined up an attractive array of famous presenters, everyone from Dave Barry and Elmo to sexy chef Rocco Di Spirito and MSNBC's "Money Honey," Maria Bartiromo.
The show got off to a rousing start—Comedy Central's Jon Stewart said that the Quills captured "the glamour of the book industry and the gravitas of an award show." The first presenter of the evening was the witty and warm actress Kim Cattrall, who parlayed her fame on Sex and the City into a bestselling advice book on—what else?—lovemaking. Cattrall gave the Debut Author award to Elizabeth Kostova for her first novel, The Historian. The literary juggernaut dominated bestseller lists last summer and Kostova couldn't help but boast that her novel had been translated into 35 languages. (Next time someone tells you first novels don't sell, toss that figure in their face.)
In a taped cutaway, Cattrall spoke eloquently about the difference between reading books and watching movies. "There are so many things that you can put into a book that you can't put into a movie because it's all inside the author's head," she said. "You get to know what it's like to be human, which really excites me."
One of the most entertaining portions of the Quills was a clip package in which Hanson interviewed a handful of sixth-graders about Harry Potter. (J.K. Rowling accepted two awards that night by videotape, for Best Children's Book and Book of the Year for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.) The influence of the young wizard on this generation was succinctly summed up by one student, who observed, "Harry Potter turned a lot of kids on to reading and if it wasn't invented, kids wouldn't be as intelligent." Yet another student predicted a dire future for Harry. "I think he's going to die in the seventh book," he said.
Bestselling author Deepak Chopra, who won in the religion category, gave one of the most gracious acceptance speeches of the night. Chopra thanked Oprah Winfrey for introducing him to American audiences in 1993. Forty-five books later, Chopra explained (in a separate video segment filmed at the Chopra Center in San Diego) that he writes all the time. For example, he said, the author took advantage of a long flight between Singapore and Melbourne, Australia, to write one of his best-known works, The Seven Laws of Spiritual Success.
This year, the Quill Awards is moving on up—uptown to a new venue: the American Museum of Natural History's Milstein Hall of Ocean Life. Dramatic, to say the least. The ceremony will be held on October 10 and NBC Universal will broadcast the show two weeks later, on October 21. To keep the show fresh, some new categories have been added (see sidebar). And of course, NBC's Al Roker will be along for the festivities.
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