Thursday, April 19, 2012
Books Ann Patchett and Lev Grossman Discuss the Pulitzer on News Hour
Posted by Steve Haruch on Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 10:06 AM
Hey, not every mention of Tennessee on national television is humiliating! Yes, Stephen Colbert made fun of our lawmakers again last night, but PBS' News Hour had his buddy Ann Patchett on for a segment discussing the lack of a fiction Pulitzer this year, along with Time book critic Lev Grossman. While Patchett retraced most of her steps from the New York Times op-ed — it's kind of a snub for all of us, and especially booksellers for whom the Pulitzer creates much-needed buzz — she also added this point:
The fact that there is no prize, weirdly, also serves the same purpose of getting people discussing books. I mean, would you have had the Pulitzer winner on the show? Maybe, maybe not. But to be able to discuss the books and say, OK, these three books are really good, and everybody's putting out their choices of books, saying, if you didn't like these three, I have got three more that are really good. And that's exciting, because people are recommending books.
Watch the clip for the discussion and her recommendations, which are also currently featured prominently by the cash registers at Parnassus.
