Quill Book Awards unveil winners

Al Gore among 19 honorees

By STEVEN ZEITCHIK

Gore

The Quill Book Awards have announced that Cormac McCarthy, Diane Setterfield and Al Gore are among its 19 winners for 2007.

McCarthy won the prize for general fiction for his post-apocalyptic novel "The Road," while Setterfield took home the Quill debut author nod for her ghost story "The Thirteenth Tale."

McCarthy is set for the bigscreen when Miramax releases the Coen brothers adaptation of his modern-day Western "No Country for Old Men" later this fall.

Meanwhile, Al Gore will receive a Quill in the history/current events/politics category for "The Assault on Reason," which takes on the current political climate much in the way that both the doc and the tome "An Inconvenient Truth" examined the planet's physical climate.

The pol-turned-activist received a Quill for "Truth" last year.

Walter Isaacson's bio of Albert Einstein, an audio edition of "To Kill a Mockingbird" read by Sissy Spacek and Amy Sedaris' humor tome "I Like You" were also winners.

The Quills will announce this year's book-to-film award, co-sponsored with Variety, at a later date. "The Devil Wears Prada" took the kudo last year.

The Quills, which are run by Variety parent company Reed Business Information and are in their third year, will be handed out in a ceremony at Lincoln Center's Frederick Rose Hall on Oct. 22. Ann Curry and Al Roker of NBC will host, while performers like Stephen Colbert will make appearances.

MTV's SuChin Pak will host a red-carpet sesh.

Awards, which are described as aiming to "inspire reading while promoting great literature," will be broadcast on NBC-owned stations as well as syndicated into other markets on Oct. 27 as a one-hour program produced by Al Roker Prods.

They will be streamed live on MSNBC.com.

Announcement of the winners before the ceremony reflects a slight shift in how they are selected. While in previous years a panel chose a shortlist and readers voted on the winners, a jury this year chose many of the winners.

Readers, however, will still be able to log on quillsvote.com for the next month to choose one of the Quill winners as the "Book of the Year."

And the winners are:

Audio
”To Kill a Mockingbird”
Written by Harper Lee; Read by Sissy Spacek
Published by Caedmon Audio, HarperCollins Publishers

Biography/ Memoir
“Einstein: His Life and Universe”
Written by Walter Isaacson
Published by Simon & Schuster

Business
“The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t”
Written by Robert I. Sutton, PhD
Published by Business Plus, Grand Central Publishing

Children’s Chapter/ Middle Grade
“The Invention of Hugo Cabret “
Written by Brian Selznick
Published by Scholastic Press

Children’s Picture Books
“Flotsam”
Written by David Wiesner
Published by Clarion Books, Houghton Mifflin

Cooking
“Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition”
Written by Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, and Ethan Becker

Published by Scribner

Debut Author
“The Thirteenth Tale”
Written by Diane Setterfield
Published by Atria

General Fiction
“The Road”
Written by Cormac McCarthy
Published by Alfred A. Knopf

Graphic Novel
“Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels “
Written by Scott McCloud
Published by Harper Paperbacks

Health/ Self-Improvement
“How Doctors Think”
Written by Jerome Groopman, M.D.
Published by Houghton Mifflin

History/ Current Events/ Politics
“The Assault on Reason”
Written by Al Gore
Published by The Penguin Press

Humor
“I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence”
Written by Amy Sedaris
Published by Warner Books

Mystery/Suspense/Thriller
“What the Dead Know”
Written by Laura Lippman
Published by William Morrow

Poetry
“For the Confederate Dead “
Written by Kevin Young
Published by Alfred A. Knopf

Religion/ Spirituality
“Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know -- And Doesn’t”
Written by Stephen Prothero
Published by Harper One

Romance
“Angels Fall”
Written by Nora Roberts
Published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons

Science Fiction/ Fantasy/ Horror
“The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day One) “
Written by Patrick Rothfuss
Published by DAW Books

Sports
“The Kings of New York: A Year Among the Geeks, Oddballs, and Geniuses Who Make Up America’s Top High School Chess Team”
Written by Michael Weinreb
Published by Gotham Books

Young Adult/Teen
“Sold “
Written by Patricia McCormick
Published by Hyperion Books for Children