I’ll just say it straight: book awards are ridiculous.
They are the garden gnomes of the literary landscape – fun, provocative, but ultimately ornamental. They have no more meritocratic substance than judging jambalaya over jelly at the village fete – it’s all a matter of personal taste. My disdain partly hearkens from a philosophical objection to the self-congratulating futility of judging art against itself.
But mainly it’s because I don’t win them.
