This week's literary events are the biggest award shows of 2020

So long, Oscar. Hello, Booker.

A book.
(Image credit: Illustrated | iStock)

As the pandemic has cleared the calendar this year for new movies, TV, and Broadway shows, book publishing has encountered a problem of a different sort: oversaturation. Books that had been delayed to the fall in knee-jerk reactions to spring shutdowns are now jostling against the season's big releases. The bottleneck has even extended to the industry's awards: The U.K.-based Booker Prize hopped from Tuesday, when it would have preceded Wednesday's National Book Awards, to Thursday, so it could avoid competing with the release of former President Barack Obama's memoir.

But while some have fretted that holding the awards on back-to-back days might create "a logjam of coverage that could dilute the impact of the prizes," this week readers ought to relish the relative normalcy offered by literary awards in the tumult of the pandemic.

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Jeva Lange

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.