New Zealand Post Book Awards -= Read all about em. Somewhere? Anywhere

By Guy Somerset | (the NZ Listener's book man) - Published on his blog June 1, 2011 |

“The New Zealand Post Book Awards,” according to the Booksellers New Zealand website where you’ll find the finalists and Best First Book Award winners announced this morning, “are the highlight of the literary calendar, eagerly awaited by writers, publishers, booksellers and the media, and recognised by the New Zealand public as the gold standard; honouring the cream of this country’s literary talent.”

Eagerly awaited by the media? That’s why you’ll find no report of the announcement in the print editions of this morning’s New Zealand Herald, Dominion Post or Press newspapers, nor on their websites that I could see at the time of writing (11am). There was zilch on the Stuff and Otago Daily Times websites, too. (I can, however, read: “Kate Moss snaps up acclaimed photographer for wedding”; “DC Comics ‘retooling’ super heroes”; “Cone craze spreads over Kapiti”; “Misplaced feline flies north to new home”; and, although I have some sympathy for this one, “Bieber, Pippa to work together”).

There was me worrying yesterday that by not having time to write this post until this morning there would be nothing fresh to say on the subject because it would all have been amply covered elsewhere. What kind of fantasy world do I sometimes drift into?

Perhaps the papers have book fatigue, the adult book awards coming so soon after the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards. They never seem to have sport fatigue, though. Perhaps in the case of the Dominion Post they were following the award announcement’s 6am embargo to the letter (or second), lest some copy of their paper be delivered to a reader at 5.59am. After all, the Dominion Post must be acutely aware of these things after inadvertently breaching an embargo and printing the winners of the children’s book awards the morning before their announcement.

Read Somerset's full comment plus his thoughtful look at the shortlist and those surprise omissions on his blog.