The Story of Waverton Good Read
An article by Susannah Hickling about Le Prix
De La Cadière was the starting point for the Waverton Good Read Award
in 2003. Francois Dufour, the doctor of La Cadière D'Azur, (a Provencal
village - population about 4000) had speculated that reading a good book
might be as useful to some of his patients as the medication he would
normally prescribe. So he set up an annual prize for the French debut
novel of the year, which attracted most votes from the readers in the
village. The idea was a great success and Le Prix De La Cadière was born.
Wendy Smedley and Gwen Goodhew decided to try
to replicate this idea in Waverton, a village of 2000 outside Chester.
They set out to find fifty or more debut novels - first adult novels written
by British citizens and published in the previous twelve months. The aim
was not only to stimulate reading in the village but also to provide encouragement
to British writers. It took some persistence to identify and then gather
several copies of each book, although publishers became more and more
helpful as they realised what was going on. Even more remarkably, more
than 50 people from in and around the village were recruited to read and
review the novels.
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The rest is history - it worked! In its first
year (2003-2004) Waverton villagers read 63 books and in July chose their
first winner - Mark Haddon for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the
Night Time. He was presented with his award at a dinner in the village.
This award dinner is now a regular feature of the Chester Literature Festival
every October and is always sold out.
At different times, small groups from Styal
Prison and the hamlet of Bickerton have augmented Waverton readers. Their
contributions have been very welcome.
Regular meetings are held throughout the year
at which debut and other novelists are invited to talk about their work.
These meetings are well-attended and provide opportunities for book lovers
to share their interest with others as well as a platform for new writers.
In 2008 Borders (Cheshire Oaks) agreed to sponsor
the Award, enabling us to give the winner a prize of £1000 (as well as
recognition by ordinary readers). When Borders closed, new sponsors NNL
and Urenco stepped in to enable us to continue to give a cash prize.
International link:
As a result of a partnership arrangement with Festival du Premier Roman
de Chambéry-Savoie, Waverton Good Read Award's long list of books for
2009-2010 have been read by a group in France. They have now chosen what
they consider to be the best British debut novel of last year, and their
choice is Rescue Man by Anthony Quinn which was one of
our short-listed books. Click
here to go to their web site.
