A Plethora of Book Awards and Reading Related Events

 Earlier this week having been World Book Night I've found myself reading a lot of press and tweets etc related to it. As usual I was struck by how fast it all comes around and found myself musing wider on how many themed events, challenges, and prizes there are. A veritiable blizzard of actvity and opportunity, but no one can hope to do it all.

Book Prizes

Somewhere there is probably a list of all the various book prizes, nominations procedure, criteria and judging process, prize… Plus many dates of course -  for when they open, longlist (if applicable) announced, shortlist announced, winner announced… 

There are certain times of the year when there appears to be a veritable cascade of shortlists for various of the more mainstream or well established prizes. Mostly on an annual basis.

Scotland's Bookshelf poster

Reading Challenges and Events

Then there’s the reading related events, another plethora of these at various times of the year from the established annual (e.g. World Book Night), through to lots of more ‘one-off’ initiatives such as the current ‘Scotland’s Bookshelf’. These events can involve reading through a themed selection of books or just one book (possibly available in a range of different formats) for more ‘One City’ style events.

A lot of these events seem to be timed for the better weather arriving (e.g. the traditional Summer Reading Challenges for children in the long summer break), things that people might read while on their summer holidays or a sunny day out. As well as more regular book groups that meet year-round.

But the move towards Summertime certainly seems to trigger added volume.

Keeping Pace

I wonder if any hardy stalwart human being actually manages to keep up with more than one or two of any such initiatives at a time though despite good intentions. Especially when they overlap so much.

There is a lot to be said for structured mechanisms that help people get some reading in. A nice list to follow and lots of enticing displays in libraries and multiple copies and promotion of said. 



Scotland's Bookshelf Display in local library

 But it would be interesting to know how many people actually follow any such things in a structured way starting and ending and reading the whole tranche, how many just dip in, or start and get waylaid mid-journey, how many would read the same items anyway whether they were included or not.

Perhaps the most important thing is that at least it’s an incentive and a structure to start whatever happens further down the line.



Carnegie Reading...



 I’m currently doing Carnegie Medal shortlist systematically....

 Plus making the odd far more casual inroad into Scotland’s Bookshelf.

I like being about to flick back and forward between the two.

It’s enough  to be going on with for now!