It was all bright lights and glamour last Friday as the book trade collectively dusted off their gladrags and trotted off to the Grovesnor Hotel in London for the 20th year of the British Book Awards, more commonly known as the Nibbies.
The champagne was flowing, the air was filled with shrieks of laughter and there were stars a-plenty on the red carpet. Who’d have thought we were deep in a recession that would see 33 Random House staff laid off this week and publishers across the board supposedly making swathing cutbacks?
But how refreshing that the majority of the awards rewarded the traditional values of plain old good writing. Not for the celebrities the Non-Fiction Book of the Year (though, of course, it was a travesty that THE MIGHTY BOOK OF BOOSH didn’t win). Not for the celebrities the biography of the year (well, Barack Obama won, but he wasn’t a celebrity when he wrote the book, you know). And when a celebrity did win – Michael Palin for the Outstanding Achievement Award – we all agreed that it was so thoroughly well deserved, and not just a shameless jump on the fame bandwagon, that we gave him a standing ovation. Especially when he lauded the book as a piece of technology in itself – the relief of the technophobe book trade was palpable.
No, we were so happy that the celebs in the most part stuck to presenting the awards that even the merciless plugging of their forthcoming books (Ant ’n’ Dec, Jerry Hall, Jo Brand to name just a few) wasn’t too grating. And – with the banter and jokes we have all come to know and love – Richard & Judy were perfect hosts. RIP Richard & Judy? I don’t think so.
So with champagne quaffed, Galaxy minstrels scoffed and awards held aloft, it was off to the after-show party where some truly, er, incredible DJs took to the decks, managing even to entice Noel Fielding onto the dance floor for a brief time. An achievement perhaps even greater than winning one of the coveted golden nibs?
Galaxy British Book Awards Winners 2009
