LONDON: A new literary prize aims to reward book reviews with edge. The Hatchet Job of the Year Award honors ``the angriest, funniest, most trenchant'' review published in a newspaper or magazine in 2011. Eight finalists for the prize were announced Tuesday. They include classicist Mary Beard's dismissal of Robert Hughes' ``Rome'' _ ``little short of a disgrace'' _ and Leo Robson's verdict on Rachel Bradford's ``Martin Amis: The Biography.'' He said it was ``full of spectacularly bad writing _ about spectacularly good writing.''
The shortlist also includes Geoff Dyer's underwhelmed reaction to Julian Barnes' Booker Prize-winning ``The Sense of an Ending.'' ``It isn't terrible,'' Dyer wrote. ``It is just so ... average.'' That counts as a rave compared to Camilla Long's review of Monique Roffey's ``With the Kisses of His Mouth.'' She called it ``a pointlessly explicit, infuriatingly naive and, at times, plain off-putting slither through a series of _ willfully? maliciously? _ unedited sexual slurpings.'' The prize, set up by the arts review aggregating website The Omnivore, will be awarded Feb. 7, with the winner chosen by a jury including biographer D.J. Taylor and journalists Suzi Feay, Rachel Johnson and Sam Leith. Onmivore coeditor Fleur Macdonald said the award was not intended to celebrate ``gratuitously vicious reviews.'' ``We are celebrating reviews that are well written, that have a point, that are insightful and also are entertaining,'' she said. ``There are too many reviews that are a bit bland.''
The winner will receive a year's supply of potted shrimp from the award's sponsor, a fishmonger. Macdonald said both the nominated reviewers and the victims of their hatchet jobs had been invited to the prize ceremony.
``Hopefully they will be able to take it in good spirits,'' she said.
The shortlist also includes Geoff Dyer's underwhelmed reaction to Julian Barnes' Booker Prize-winning ``The Sense of an Ending.'' ``It isn't terrible,'' Dyer wrote. ``It is just so ... average.'' That counts as a rave compared to Camilla Long's review of Monique Roffey's ``With the Kisses of His Mouth.'' She called it ``a pointlessly explicit, infuriatingly naive and, at times, plain off-putting slither through a series of _ willfully? maliciously? _ unedited sexual slurpings.'' The prize, set up by the arts review aggregating website The Omnivore, will be awarded Feb. 7, with the winner chosen by a jury including biographer D.J. Taylor and journalists Suzi Feay, Rachel Johnson and Sam Leith. Onmivore coeditor Fleur Macdonald said the award was not intended to celebrate ``gratuitously vicious reviews.'' ``We are celebrating reviews that are well written, that have a point, that are insightful and also are entertaining,'' she said. ``There are too many reviews that are a bit bland.''
The winner will receive a year's supply of potted shrimp from the award's sponsor, a fishmonger. Macdonald said both the nominated reviewers and the victims of their hatchet jobs had been invited to the prize ceremony.
``Hopefully they will be able to take it in good spirits,'' she said.