What do librarians know about books, eh?

Nominations for the Quills, the book awards whose shortlist is drawn up by librarians and booksellers in the US, have been announced. Stephen King, for novel Cells, and Al Gore, for his eco-warrior tome The Inconvenient Truth, head the list.
Critics of the awards say they're too populist, sticking to the lowest common denominator bestseller lists rather than honouring works of literary genius (last year's inaugural overall winner was JK Rowling). But good writing is good writing and surely it's better to honour an author who can captivate many readers rather than one whose books may be well-written but are also unfathomable and unreadable? There's also a sinister overtone that librarians aren't capable of selecting deserving works, which is nonsense - or how did EL Doctorow's The March and David Mitchell's Black Swan Green (favourite to win this year's Booker prize) make the cut? Click here to vote.