Why We Need So Many Book Prizes

The shortlist for the International Man Booker Prize, not to be confused with the original Man Booker Prize, will be announced this morning in Toronto, and despite some skepticism as to the need for yet another literary prize, John Fraser says that it’s all in a good cause. “There’s never enough to be done for the beleaguered world of books. If anything will get a worthy offering off a seller’s shelves and into the hands of a willing reader, even by curiosity aroused through the latest “damn book prize,” then all well and good, or even better!”