There’s the Man Booker Prize, the Orange Prize, the National Book Award, Independent Booksellers Book Prize, the Scotiabank Giller Prize (O Canada!), The New York Times Book Review (not a prize, but might as well be), the Pulitzer Prize, the never-ending Book of the Year nominations… etc., etc., etc.
So why don’t book bloggers have their own Literary Prize?
I’m not talking about an award for the best blog – but an award for the Best Book of 2010? It’s a win-win situation, when you think about it. Publishers would love it, authors would love it, and it would give the bloggers something else to talk (and argue) about. No money would be attached to it, just the fame (or notoriety) that comes with being the Blogger’s Choice of Best Book of 2010 (and no that is not my first choice for a name).
In fact, the more I think about it the more I like it. The question is, what does everyone else thing?
And yes, you can pick more than one answer (sigh).
READER AT LARGE 
I think this is a great idea. It could be done: look how well bloggers organize events and challenges. There should be prizes for several categories, and bloggers could vote for the category they blog about most often (YA bloggers vote for YA titles, etc).
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I saw your post about this on the Book Blogs Ning and although it’s true that Book Blogger Appreciation Week (BBAW) gives out a prize to the best book of the year, I still think this is a good idea. I agree with Lisa that it should be broken down by category, to make it easier for people to vote. (It’s hard to vote if you haven’t read any of the books on the list, which is what happened to me at BBAW last year!) Of course you might want to focus on adult fiction only, to avoid duplicating the effort of the Cybils.
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Thanks Lisa and avisannschild for your comments. I hadn’t realized BBAW gave out a prize for best book of the year- I need to pay more attention.
I was definitely thinking of a prize focusing on adult fiction – and thought if there was an award it would be best to limit it to fiction and non-fiction… have bloggers nominate books that would be shortlisted (3-5 in each category?), and then have a committee make the final selection.
What made me think about it was all the great books that bloggers recommend, but which don’t always seem to make it mainstream.
Again, thanks for you input… it is something to think about.
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