Consuming Fictions: The Booker Prize and Fiction in Britain Today

There have been many significant changes over the past two decades in the consumption of serious literary fiction in Britain, readers and booktrade have responded to the development of a prize culture in which the Booker and its shortlist have caught the limelight and flourished, and other literary awards - the Whitbread, the Sunday Express, The Betty Trask, the Irish Times/Aer Lingus - have followed suit. The rise of the major book chains - Smiths, Waterstone's, Dillons, Books Etc, Blackwell's - together with trade promotions and film and television tie-ins have also played a part in the new consumption. Agents and publishers have given birth to the literary blockbuster, and a few have suffered high-cost post-natal depression. This is a study of these changes. Richard Todd explains how these prizes work, and analyzes who is reading and who is buying and how much. Drawing on the wide experiences of a range of consultants including writers, publishers, agents, booksellers, the press and media, the book puts the changes into context from every angle.