Aside: The Delete Key Awards for the Year's Worst Fiction
[Updated with links to winners!]
Caught just in time: OneMinuteBookReviews is hosting the first annual Delete Key Awards, which honour "the worst writing in hardcover or paperback books published in the past year". The awards are compiled by author, journalist and reviewer Janice Harayda. For more info, read the Delete Key Awards FAQ, so you don't have to ask me.
This should be televised, with the finalists and winners forced to read aloud passages selected by the judge(s), and any future royalties surrendered to fund literacy programs.
The awards are (apparently) presented in two categories, Novels/Memoir and How-To [Update: categories for convenience only, not separate awards]. The finalists, and honourable mentions, are listed below. Links go to their nominations:
Novels/Memoir:
- For One More Day by Mitch Albom (Hyperion)
- The Handmaid and the Carpenter by Elizabeth Berg (Random House)
- Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris (Delacorte)
- The Confession by James McGreevey with David France (HarperCollins/Regan)
- The Interruption of Everything by Terry McMillan (Signet)
- The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud (Knopf)
- Toxic Bachelors by Danielle Steel (Dell)
Honourable Mention: Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier
How-To:
- The Book Club Companion: A Comprehensive Guide to the Reading Group Experience by Diana Loevy (Berkley)
- Love Smart: Find the One You Want — Fix the One You Got by Dr. Phil McGraw (Free Press)
- The Power of Nice: How to Conquer the Business World With Kindness by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval
Honourable Mention: Your Management Sucks: Why You Have to Declare War on Yourself and Your Business, by Mark Stevens
Update -- winners announced, Miss America style: Second Runner-Up, First Runner-Up (who will take the crown if the winner cannot fulfill its duties), and the Winner is ...
Did you pick it? Who was robbed? What should the statue look like? Can you believe a single human read all these books without buying a ticket to Happy Town on the Prozac Express?
