In Defense of Literary Awards (and Longlists, and Shortlists)

It’s awards nominations announcement season, which means it’s also snarky opinions about awards nominations season. I love a hot take as much as anyone, but the truth is I have been and remain flagrantly earnest about literary prizes. Anything for a chance for a few less heralded books to get some attention.

When the National Book Awards longlists were revealed two weeks ago, they didn’t contain, with the exception of Marlon James, many of the heavy hitters that had been buzzed about and expected to dominate. The lists defied predictions, with two debut novelists nominated for fiction and a nonfiction list containing nine out of ten authors who had never before been nominated for a National Book Award. There were complaints, as always, that the lists are too obscure or esoteric, and in the case of one New York Times op ed to which I won’t link, too diverse.

I, for one, am thrilled to see names of nominees that are new to me. I already loved the new Colson Whitehead and Emma Cline and Patrick Radden Keefe, and I’m excited for the new Hernan Diaz and Min Jin Lee novels, but there are a bunch of authors that have been brought to my attention that I haven’t yet had a chance to read, and I think that’s wonderful.

Anyone who really cares about books must be curious above all, and must cultivate a willingness to try new things.

When people ask me what gives me hope in these bleak times I have a standard answer I like to give: “Despite whatever’s happening in the world and despite whatever is specifically happening in publishing and media, the books keep coming.” It’s true. As a critic I track new releases, and every single week there are at least five new books being published that I want to check out. Obviously there is not enough time for me, personally, to get to all of them. This is overwhelming!

I used to roll my eyes at the many people in publishing who thought that discoverability of new books was our biggest issue (our biggest issues are AI and the fact that Amazon has such a monopolistic hold on the industry). But now I consider the fact that there is so much slop out there, and there are algorithms that magnify your echo chambers or show readers the same bestsellers or the same kinds of books over and over again. If you don’t live near a beautifully curated indie bookstore, I understand how you can get stuck in a rut.

Meanwhile publishers, especially the most corporate ones that comprise the Big Five, have such a huge output that they have to prioritize what titles they push hardest to their marketing teams and sales forces. They tend to favor books with a proven sales potential, so very rarely does the whole organization get behind a lesser-known author’s debut novel.  At the same time book coverage in newspapers and magazines has dwindled drastically in recent years. When they do choose to cover books, many media outlets increasingly want to talk about the books that readers are already talking about, rather than taking risks on lesser known books and being taste makers and thought leaders.

All of these factors add up to the sad reality that there are fewer ways to hear about new books—even for me, a plugged in book critic who tries to stay on top of things. Today, literary awards might be the best shot for a beautifully written but lesser known book to break out even a little, (we’re not talking about the bestseller list, just some recognition). So I’m grateful to the judges of literary prizes who take on the enormous work of reading through mountains of submitted books and choosing the ones that really spoke to them—all for a modest honorarium.

I understand cynicism about awards in general, and I get why a casual reader would glance at the longlists and only recognize one or two names and so then swiftly move on. There are already too many books. Who wants to take a chance on a title they haven’t even heard of when free time is so limited as it is? And what’s so bad about wanting to read only what your friends are reading?

But I think anyone who really cares about books in the year 2026 must be curious above all, and must cultivate a willingness to try new things. It’s an act of great literary optimism to believe that there are new books worth reading that haven’t generated a lot of buzz. I promise that the books are still good (at least some of them). They’re just a little more difficult to find.