The weblog Hogglestock has announced the winners of its 2015 book awards, popularly known as “Hoggies.” The award is the creation of Thomas Otto, who tweets under the name @TJHogglestock. The name is taken from a Trollope novel. The awards ceremony (allegedly in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, but more likely in NW Washington, DC) was apparently notable for an incident only marginally related to books:
Controversy … spilled onto the red carpet when Margaret Atwood excoriated E! News reporter Giuliana Rancic on-air for asking probing questions about her books while failing to ask even one question about her outfit. “Would you ask me such deep questions if I was a man? One of these years I wish one of you bottom feeders in the press would ask me who made my gown.” Later, Rancic defended her red carpet questioning “I ask the questions our viewers care about most and they are much more interested in alternative interpretations than they are in Atelier Versace.”
Waugh’s award in the category “Best Short Stories” was extended to Mr. Loveday’s Little Outing and Other Sad Stories (1936). Some of this year’s other Hoggies went to books in less straightforward categories:
BEST NOVEL – SLIGHTLY VINTAGE EURO/MIDDLE EAST Minotaur by Benjamin Tammuz
BEST NOVEL – CLASSICAL MUSIC WITH LESBIAN TWIST Chamber Music by Doris Grumbach
BEST THOUGHTFUL, INTERESTINGLY TOLD, SLIGHTLY ANITA BROOKNERISH NOVEL – Outline by Rachel Cusk
None of the 2015 award winners was actually published this year (as Otto somewhat sheepishly admitted under close questioning by the press) but all seem to have been read by him in the designated period. Here’s his description of the Waugh selection:
I so enjoyed these quirky, rather dark and twisted short stories. So much so I had to go out and buy all of his collected stories. Not sure if they will all have this kind of twisted point of view but I hope so.
