Jeg har ikke veldig romantiske ideer om hva som foregår i verdens bokprisjuryer, men Marianne Wiggins’ beretning om sin deltakelse i årets skjønnlitterære jury for National Book Award tar det hele noen hakk forbi avromantisering. Read Roger sier dette er grunnen til at juryens arbeid er ment å være hemmelig, jeg må nå tilstå at jeg synes deler av det er rett så forfriskende:
Nonfiction outnumbers fiction in new titles published each year by 4 to 1, so the nonfiction judges read twice what we did — 500 submissions. One judge remarked that she came home one day to find her children had constructed a fort out of them. In my case, I constructed an elaborate system of piles: read, unread, couldn’t get past Page 10, crap, bloated, vomitous, kill-me-now and praise God.