What literary awards do you trust?
What literary awards do you trust?
Got Death With Interruptions recently and realized the author José Saramago was a Nobel Laureate in literature, which in turn got me reading about said prize and more particularly criticisms and controversies thereof. Looking down the list of laureates I recognize some, and don't recognize a lot more.
Thinking about the Nobel in literature got me thinking about others, like the Hugo, the Pulitzer, and of course the R.L. Stine creative writing award, which in turn leads to the question- What literary awards, if any, do you trust?
Most of them are simply irrelevant to me. Yes, the book might be award-worthy, but I can virtually guarantee that I have differing preferences than the committees. The more "highbrow" the further I'm usually from their rating.
One of the reasons I appreciate the Hugo for Novels is because it tends towards stuff that isn't as high brow like John Scalzi, Martha Wells, Dan Simmons, etc. and even some of their earliest winners and nominees are folks like Heinlen, Asimov, and Frank Herbert, so its a bit more of a genre fans award.