She asked lots of nosy questions. She said she would use part of her prize money to take her husband and daughter to Guam, where she has been invited to speak in schools. No touts with tip sheets stood at the door of the hotel before the ceremony and few of this year's nominees have achieved commercial as well as critical success. The organizers of the National Book Awards stress that this is not about bucks but about books. Publishers might think otherwise.
Victors usually see a positive bump in book sales.
Today the soiree is staged by the nonprofit National Book Foundation. Though other, more lucrative, awards have popped up over the years, the National Book Awards are still the Super Bowl of publishing in this country. The Broadway Ballroom at the Marriott was acrawl with scrawlers. Tonight's banquet dotted the i of the three-day event. On Monday finalists for the young people's literature prize met the public at Hunter College.