Criticism
Laura Miller, writing in Salon (Oct 12, 2011), said the fiction award has became a Newbery Medal for adults: Good for you whether you like it or not. She said "the impression has arisen that already-successful titles are automatically sidelined in favor of books that the judges feel deserve an extra boost of attention.. the nominated books exhibit qualities — a poetic prose style, elliptical or fragmented storytelling — that either don’t matter much to nonprofessional readers, or even put them off." She claims the NBA has become irrelevant to average readers and of more interest to professional writers. Craig Fehrman, writing in The New York Times (October 28, 2011), said "the National Book Awards known for this sort of thing. They're awards for insiders."
In response to these criticisms, the award "has been taking a tough look at itself, hiring a consultant to survey industry insiders — booksellers, editors and even critics — to see if the award process itself needs to be reformed to attract more attention."
Read more about this topic: National Book Award
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“In criticism I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)
“Cubism had been an analysis of the object and an attempt to put it before us in its totality; both as analysis and as synthesis, it was a criticism of appearance. Surrealism transmuted the object, and suddenly a canvas became an apparition: a new figuration, a real transfiguration.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)
“To be just, that is to say, to justify its existence, criticism should be partial, passionate and political, that is to say, written from an exclusive point of view, but a point of view that opens up the widest horizons.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)