Hi folks,
Welcome back to my deliberations for the 2018 TOA Book Of The Year Award, or as it is more commonly known, 'The Most Irrelevant Prize in World Literature'. There have been a lot of questions and complaints about the process so far – why is it so looooong, shouldn’t it be called the 2017 award, is Kanye West going to interrupt, did ya forget about Maniac Magee, and so on. But disgruntled reader, today you can finally put those questions away because I’m personally guaranteeing, RIGHT NOW, that we’ll have this all wrapped up by the end of the month… er, year.
Since it’s been so long since our last check in, let’s take a moment today to take stock of where we are with the process before returning in the coming days to pick out a winner. After eliminating twelve contenders from my official shortlist in May, we were left with these six final nominees:
January - First and Last Notebooks by Simone Weil
February - Tenth of December by George Saunders
February - Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
June - The Mother of All Questions by Rebecca Solnit
November - Threads by Kate Evans
December - M Train by Patti Smith
Who will be removed from contention next? Place your bets now, reader.
In the meantime, let’s close out today with a couple of leftover thoughts from two books I eliminated back in the spring.
From Impro... keep your head still while you speak...
This thought from Impro suggested that those who hold their head still while speaking exert more natural authority than those whose heads bob, weave, and jiggle while they speak. I’ve paid close attention to this idea since reading Impro and I’ve noted many instances of Johnstone’s observation in the past few months.
The most surprising time I’ve noticed this is when I watch the local news. I would think this whole idea of ‘keeping still’ would be the first order of business at Newscaster University but there are still plenty of on-air reporters out there whose heads bounce back and forth across my screen – sometimes, their movements are so frenzied that I wonder if I’ll need a wider TV just to keep them in the frame long enough to find out what irrelevant event happened in some nearby suburb.
From The Hard Thing About Hard Things... managerial tactics are often substitutes for being able to tell the truth...
This is perhaps the best observation I took from last year’s reading. Like with any other job, the manager role demands a person blend natural ability with a set of acquired skills. For those who are naturally good at telling the truth, the number of skills to learn is greatly diminished in comparison to those who are uncomfortable with having to tell someone about the way things really are.
OK folks, that’ll be it for today. Thank you for your patience with this process! Back again soon to resume knocking out nominees.
Tim
