I felt very refined this last Thursday, as I sat in a suit and tie nursing a $16 glass of wine at one of Manhattan’s snazziest lounges. This is a very far cry from my normal Thursday evening of “Supernatural,” Ovaltine, gym shorts, and peanut butter and jelly. But once a year, I can afford it. And I’ll do basically whatever Dennis and Valerie tell me.
Dennis and Valerie are the co-publishers of Melville House, a Brooklyn-based indie publisher known for their smart, quirky books…and, locally, for their parties. On Thursday, they threw what they called the “Oscars for Book Trailers,” officially named the Moby Awards. They got some 200+ nominations from their blog readers. I don’t know how many hours of book trailers that comes to, but wow, they watched a lot. The winners received little golden (or were they silver?) whales, which, according to Dennis, will be “properly mounted” next year (they also apparently were not the right species of whale).
The categories included: Best Big-Budget Book Trailer, Best Low-Budget Book Trailer, Biggest Waste of Conglomerate Money, Best Cameo, Trailer Least Likely to Sell the Book, Best Performance by an Author, Most Annoying Performance by an Author, Bloodiest Book Trailer, and Best Foreign Book Trailer.
Melville has posted the results on MobyLives, their renowned book blog. Check it out for at least 15 minutes of entertainment.
-David