RBI and NBC Present 2007 Quill Awards
by Francine Fialkoff -- Library Journal, 10/23/2007 9:48:00 AM
Nora Roberts’s Angels Fall (Putnam) was named Book of the Year by readers (as well as winner in the Romance category) at the 2007 Quill Book Awards, held October 22 in New York City at the spectacular Jazz at Lincoln Center theater. Quills were awarded in 19 categories, plus Book of the Year and Variety’s Blockbuster Book to Film Award, which went to the Bourne Trilogy by Robert Ludlum. The Quills also honored David Halberstam posthumously with a Platinum Quill. Presented by Reed Business Information (RBI) and NBC Universal Television Stations, the Quills will be broadcast on NBC stations October 27, 7-8 p.m.
Kicking off the awards ceremony, The Colbert Report’s Stephen Colbert lamented the loss of the oral tradition, took a swing at the National Book Awards, and wondered why the Quills were “being televised instead of novelized.” Presenters included Joan Allen, a star of the Bourne films and a supporter of First Book, which gives books to children from low-income families, footballer Tiki Barber, actress Brooke Shields, and novelist Mary Higgins Clark. Also on hand was Bourne Ultimatum screenwriter Tony Gilroy, who directed the recently acclaimed film Michael Clayton. With winners named in advance, many more authors were on hand, including Amy Sedaris, who took the Humor category for I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence (Warner), and Laura Lippman, whose What the Dead Know (Morrow) received the Mystery/Suspense/Thriller prize.
Walter Isaacson, who won in the biography category for Einstein: His Life and Universe, used the podium to marvel about the technology of the book: what if the Internet came first and then Gutenberg came along and said ‘I can give you words on paper and you can take it into your backyard.’ “Wouldn’t that be a wonderful technology,” Isaacson remarked.
The Quills Literacy Foundation supports literacy-based initiatives, including this year’s renovation of the Southeast Branch of the District of Columbia Public Library, spearheaded by Library Journal.
