Clever Magazine, Vol. 6, #2 "2004 Clever Book Awards " (www.clevermag.com)

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The Clever Magazine
Book Awards for 2004

by Diannek, editor

It's time once again for the Clever Magazine Book Awards. The committee has met and the tough decisions have been rendered. This year's award winners are books that will appeal to a wide reading audience but some are books that may not make it onto the best-seller lists. And the thing that makes the Clever Awards different from other awards is that there are no publication restrictions on our choices, since it's impossible for us to read everything that comes along every year. As most readers know, there are bountiful book years and drought book years, but rarely a week goes by without some interesting title that merits our attention.

And the winners are:

Fiction:
The Winner: The Known World, by Edward P. Jones
(This book also won the Pulitzer Prize, so there.)

Non-Fiction:
The Winner: The 9/11 Commission Report (of course)
The Runner-up:
A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson

Biography:
The Winner: Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow

Mystery:
The Winner: Shadow Divers, by Robert Kurson
Runner-up: The Last Juror, by John Grisham

Travel Essay:
The Winner: Journey up the Nile, by Susan Hoy
(...this is a very special book, it's an art book about a teddy bear's journey...)

Inspiration:
The Winner: Bringing Down the House, by Ben Mezrich
(...I was inspired to take up card-counting and go play black jack...)

Best Classic (that I probably only read part of but I'm a better person for):
The Winner: Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston

Pure Drivel:
No Clear Winner, but we nominating several of those "series" books that have simply taken things too far. Candidates: the Chicken Soup Series, the Bathroom Book Series, and the Worst-Case Scenario Series -- enough already.

So there you have it. A round of applause for the Phantom, who all deserves a new pair of reading glasses and a nice cup of tea for all her hard work.

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