When the 2006 Quill Book Awards were announced, I had noticed flack on several literary blogs bemoaning the People's Choice-like voting as well the additional publicity for titles from already big presses. Some simply don't like popularity. Personally, I didn't pay the announcement much attention because I'm really bad at being up on book news and mostly read backlist anyway.

Although consumer-driven voting is sort of redundant since the masses already cast votes with dollars, I'm more looking forward to the Quills now that I've had a chance to read The Observer article What's the best novel in the past 25 years? The newspaper polled "about 150 writers and 'literary sages'" and I think their pick is crap. Maybe I'm too American or don't understand post-apartheid South Africa or am not literary enough, but I found the winner, J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace, to be tediously boring. Tediously boring is not always a bad thing, though. I read it while house/cat sitting and it certainly helped me fall asleep in a strange bed. And I'm comforted in knowing I'm not alone in my opinion.

The Quills will be awarded tomorrow, which happens to also be the day for the Man Booker Prize announcement. Disgrace is a past Booker winner. Hmm. I think I'm more interested in what the people have to say.

Speaking of the Quills, I took a quick look at the nominees and noticed that Alison Bechdel's Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic is up for best graphic novel. While we've all been freaking out over its possible removal from a public library, Bechdel blogs: "Banned in Missouri? Cool."