Why Books Need Literary Prizes

Tomorrow sees the annual Costa book award: a notoriously hard competition to get a handle on, not least because, now the individual categories (fiction, poetry, biography etc) have been adjudicated, the celebrity jury has the unenviable task of comparing Hilary Mantel's Man Booker-winning novel Bring Up the Bodies with a graphic biography, Dotter of Her Father's Eyes, and three other category winners, including Sally Gardner's Maggot Moon, a book for children. It's a bad case of apples and oranges, and the outcome rarely satisfies. Still, whatever its deficiencies, I agree with those who say that, in general, these trophies are A Good Thing. Yes, it's a lottery, but it's a lottery that attracts the reading public to new books, and sometimes promotes unknowns. What's not to like?