Christopher Moore's Blog

Wow. For those of you who didn’t see it, well — You probably would have tuned in to see your favorite authors — Nick Hornby was there, right? And Stephen Cannell, a very nice guy, he was there. And Jonathan Lethem — you wanted to see him, right? I mean, it was about readers picking their favorite books, it was, presumably, about people who like to read and people who write the books they like. Yeah, well, you didn’t get to see any of those guys, except Cannell, who said something like, “Writing is challenging” on his way in to dinner when Roker cornered him. Horby, Letham, your author guy? Nope.

It went like this. Al Roker talked about Harry Potter, while standing next to a woman that no one had ever seen before, who probably wasn’t a coke whore, despite appearances, and then they gave Harry Potter a chapbook award, then they gave awards for new writer, business, kids illustrated, humor, and, uh, some other kid thing. Ridley Pearson and Dave Barry did two jokes.

Al and the – uh — not coke whore, did a short piece on the food served at the banquet.

Then they did a five minute piece on Harry Potter.

They came back, and gave awards for cook book, and Robert Klein came out.

Whoops — at some point Jon Stewart read four jokes, then left. He wasn’t there to accept the award the Daily Show book won.

Then they did six minutes on Deepak Chopra.

Then they showed ten award winners, about three seconds for each book cover, in biography, romance, self-help, poetry, graphic novel, history, sports, and sci-fi and fantasy. (These award winners each got one tenth the time that Prilosec got.) You couldn’t even see the author’s names on the graphic novel winner (Gaiman,Kuber, Isanove).And Janet Evanovich, who won for crime/mystery, didn’t get acknowledged at all. That’s fucked up. If it’s important enough to give people an award, and televise it, either do it right or don’t do it.

Then they came back, gave an award for young adult, and general fiction, then they gave book of the year to Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling talked on tape.

Oh, and Elmo was in two segments.

None of which detracts that you guys voted for your faves, and I’m grateful that I was one of them, but wow, the show was embarrassing. I mean, awards shows, at their best, generally suck, but at least you get bling, cleavage, outrageous lack of fashion sense, big music, and, well, awards. This thing was a shipwreck looking for an iceberg.