Quills Highlights Librarians

By Rebecca Miller -- Library Journal, 11/1/2006

Libraries and librarians were central to the Quill Book Awards October 10, as winner after winner thanked them for their votes and their support of reading. This, despite a hall full of publishing heads, authors, and celebrities, including Anderson Cooper, Donald Trump, Stanley Tucci, and others. During a break between awarding winners in 19 categories, Harry Connick Jr. (top photo) introduced a brief video clip about the renovation of the Alvar Street Branch Library in New Orleans. The library reopened in June after a major pro bono initiative spearheaded by Library Journal, with funding support from the Quills Literacy Foundation. Noting that the branch is on the same street as his planned Habitat Musician's Village in New Orleans, Connick praised the renovation, saying that it was “the only construction going on” there a year after Hurricane Katrina.

The Quill Awards, now in its second year and taped for airing on October 28 on NBC Universal, is a “reader's choice” award. The winners, all posted at www.thequills.org, include Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It (Rodale) for history/current events/politics, Julie Powell's Julie & Julia (Little, Brown) in the debut author category, Christopher Moore's A Dirty Job (Morrow) for fiction, and John Grogan's Marley and Me for both biography/memoir (Morrow) and audio (HarperAudio). The Platinum Quill was awarded to Caroline Kennedy for her work in New York City schools and in honor of the 50th anniversary of the publication of her father's Profiles in Courage. Tyler Perry's Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings: Madea's Commentaries on Love and Life (Riverhead) was named Book of the Year. The Quills were created by Reed Business Information, parent company of LJ.