Can a cover girl judge a good book

By Nicola Shepherd

WHO'S THE best judge of a good book The ordinary person who has just read it The literary critic Other authors Or the person whose name carries weight for reasons other than literature A horse-racing commentator A newsreader A rower, albeit a gold-medallist

This is the spat that's got the literary world all of a twitter. Not content with the flak they got for rubbing shoulders with Jerry Hall last year, lean gorgeous and angular as her shoulders were, the organisers of the year 2000's Whitbread prize tipped the balance on the Book of the Year judging panel in favour of celebrities, at the expense of the authors and critics.

Depending on your viewpoint this is either striking a blow against the snobbishness and elitism that differentiates literature (for those who know) from reading (for the rest of us), or it's another example of the dumbing down of anything that once had educational or intellectual value.

Which side do you come down on The final judging panel for the Whitbread Awards- the one that takes the winners from all five categories (novel, first novel, biography, poetry and children's books, each of which gets 3,500) and chooses

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And why not The books they judge are aimed at ordinary people. The Whitbread Prize prides itself on being the prize for, 'good books that are enjoyed'. Spokeswoman Sunita Rappai goes further by saying: 'It is not a literary prize in any way.'

A Whitbread insider, who would not be named, went further by saying that the prize is for books that can be enjoyed 'by ordinary people', while acknowledging that sounded a tad patronising.

The Booker Prize, on the other hand, takes itself a whole lot more seriously. Its spokesman Martyn Goff wonders when the Whitbread is going to invite a Spice Girl to judge. He says that as soon as the conversation amongst the authors and critics on the panel turns to form and narrative dialogue, the celebs are left floundering.

But, these are books that are on sale, and that are bought in the main by ordinary people. So, why should the authors and literary critics decide what is best for us with our night-time cocoa They are not our teachers, and we haven't asked them for a reading list.

Why not go further and, a few weeks before the judging panel gathers, scour the bookshops for some real book shoppers. Give them the eight or so books and tell them to come back and 'discuss' who the winner should be. The cynics will say that the organisers of the Whitbread do this every year, change the rules of judging engagement and get lots of free publicity for what otherwise might be in line for the Dullest Event of the Year Prize.

The bottom line is, do such awards make any difference at all to our perception of the book or influence our decision to read it Could you be a Whitbread panel judge Are your credentials better than Penny Smith's or Alan Davies If so click here.