Tonight in London, the founders of the Omnivore review-aggregating website will announce the winner of the second annual Hatchet Job of the Year award. This rewards “the writer of the angriest, funniest, most trenchant book review of the past twelve months”. Last year’s winner was Adam Mars-Jones, who was presented with the golden hatchet and a year’s supply of potted shrimp (courtesy of the Fish Society) for his review of Michael Cunningham’s By Nightfall.
The runner-up last year was the New Statesman‘s lead fiction reviewer, Leo Robson, who earned an honourable mention for his review of Richard Bradford’s biography of Martin Amis. We’re delighted that another NS contributor has made the shortlist chosen this year by judges Lynn Barber, Francis Wheen and John Walsh. Richard J Evans’s merciless review of Hitler: A Short Biography by A N Wilson is one of eight shortlisted reviews. Here’s a representative sample:
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