Waverton Good Read Awards

One of the things I appreciate most about living in the UK is the seemingly high level of eccentrics around the place.

For example, the Waverton Good Read Awards that was featured on the BBC Culture Show last night. What a great idea – crazy, but great. The organisers Gwen and Wendy, two Waverton Village inhabitants decided to host their own book award, an alternative to the Booker and Whitbread, for first time authors. And the judges are all the villagers that want to participate (which I take to be pretty much everyone in the village).

A pool of books are left at strategic points around the village, bakery, post office ect, people pick them up and rank them on a feedback form. In the mean time they have meetings with discussion and talks from some of the nominated authors. Then the top five books are shortlisted and everyone has a couple of months to read them and vote on their fave. The shortlist was announced last night – check out their website and a story from one of the nominated authors from last year, Tony Saint. For those moments when you want something new to read but aren’t sure if you want to take a risk on something new – these people have done the work for you.