The Waverton Good Read Award

It is with immense pleasure that I can tell readers of this blog that Testament has been nominated for the Waverton Good Read Award.

In case you don’t know about the award, Wikipedia has this to say:

The Waverton Good Read Award was founded in 2003 by villagers in Waverton, Cheshire, based on Le Prix de la Cadiere d‘Azur, a literary prize awarded by a Provencal village. First adult novels written by UK residents and published in the previous twelve months are eligible for consideration and are read by villagers. "The aim was not only to stimulate reading in the village but to provide encouragement to British writers".
It is the first British award to be judged by normal readers rather than literary figures.

and, should you be interested you can read more about the award on its website, here.

There’s also a natty summary of winners and shortlisted novels on Wikipedia here.

Having read all this, I am very honoured indeed that Testament has been nominated. I have read three out of the five previous winners – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time (Mark Haddon), Boy A (Jonathan Trigell) and A Brief History of Tractors in Ukrainian (Marina Lewycka), and enjoyed them all very much. It feels wonderful that Testament is being bracketed with books like these, even if it is only for a short while until the long list is announced…

I am off up to Cheshire next week as they have been kind enough to ask me to and talk to the group about Testament. Must remember which book I’m talking about and not start wittering on about the all-encompassing work in progress…