First Inaugural Oscar Winners for Books
What if the Oscar winners from this year were books?
“Biggest” News in Books: The Results from the Academy of Literature
The 95th Oscars happened on Sunday night and they were without major incident and with a solid production. Jimmy Kimmel did a good job hosting, and the presenters, speeches, music acts, and explanations of the awards were all good if not exactly pulse raising. The awards themselves were a bit of a snooze. Everything (pun intended) went all chalk (which means all the predicted favorites won; this lovely term originates from how betting favorites would have the most chalk from odds makers erasing and updating their odds). In fact every Vegas favorite won with the exception of the minor upsets in Jamie Lee Curtis winning best supporting actress and All Quiet winning original score, both slight underdogs. The biggest upset was All Quiet winning production design according to odds makers, but it didn’t feel that way in the moment when, to that point, the film had dominated across the technical categories. Basically, this boiled down to two movies winning all night, which robbed the ceremony of any meaningful debate.
A few weeks ago, I went through the thought exercise of creating a fictional awards for books based on the Oscars. Now that the Oscars have concluded and the results are in, we’re going to give out the book Oscars to the novels and works of nonfiction that are analogous to the Oscar winners of 2023. Like the Academy members, I have not seen all of these movies and I have not read all of these books, so many of these takes will be based entirely on hearsay, third-party sources, and narrative. If you don’t like these results, please file all complaints with the Academy of Literature.
THE EVERYTHING OSCAR
Best Picture | Best Book / Director | Masterwork / Best Actor and Actress | Best Writer of the Year / Supporting Actor & Actress | Best Work of Genre or Memoir /Original Screenplay | Best Debut Novel
Oscar Winner: Everything Everywhere All at Once
Book Oscar Winner: Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
This was a huge book last year and it fits so effortlessly with all of the categories that Everywhere won awards for: it was a widely acclaimed, widely beloved book with a diverse cast of great characters, not exactly a debut but a second novel (close enough), and a literary work that broke through using genre elements and subjects that haven’t traditionally be lauded in the literary world (using made up video games as a large narrative device, and nerd subculture). Although like with Everywhere, since talking about this book’s universal approval at the start of the year, I have had different readers tell me the ideas in TT&T didn’t quite reach full emotional depth that popular consensus would posit. For Everywhere, this undercurrent of criticism is even more public and clearly exists below the overwhelming outpouring of euphoria and affection.
THE QUIET OSCAR
International Feature | Best Work in Translation / Cinematography | Best Sentence Writing / Film Editing | Best Editing / Production Design | Best Setting and Descriptions
Oscar Winner: All Quiet on the Western Front
Book Oscar Winner: The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk
The task here is to find a work in translation that tackles a tried-and-true literary subject matter and hits all the technical marks, even if regular viewers (readers) might not be as taken with it or might find it too challenging a read. Without having read The Books of Jacob, a 992 page novel translated from Polish that is a riff on the Hebrew Books of Jacob told in reverse, I feel comfortable this fits the mold. In reader reviews, people don’t seem to have the same ire for this book as viewers do for All Quiet, so that’s where the comparison falls apart. What can I say? Books are better than movies.
THE REST OF THEM OSCARS
Documentary Feature |Best Nonfiction
Oscar Winner: Navalny
Book Oscar Winner: G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage
The obvious move would be to give this to a popular nonfiction book about Russia/Putin—as was clearly a driving force behind this documentary win—but the odd thing in looking at 2022 books is that for all the news coverage about Russia there were few breakout books that covered the subject or authoritarianism in general. Therefore we’re giving it to another major story about a infamous political strongman who reigned for decades and jailed political opponents, sound familiar?
Adapted Screenplay | Best Book in an Ongoing Series Best Book in a Series or in Conversation with a Previous Literary Work
Oscar Winner: Women Talking
Book Oscar Winner: Kaikey by Vaishnavi Patel
Even if Women Talking, the book this movie was based on, was eligible we couldn’t give it to that since I made this award for books in a series. It is a tall order to find a book award that is equivalent to Women Talking winning the Adapted Screenplay Oscar. We need a book in a series that’s heavy and is trying to be contemporary commentary with big ideas. So, what we’re going to do is rewrite the rules in real time; this is no longer for Oscar for a series but for a series or a book in conversation with a previous work, which is actually closer to what Adapted Screenplay is at the Oscars. And it’s going to Kaikeyi, the feminist retelling of the ancient Indian epic Ramayana.
Visual Effects | Best Scene in a Novel
Oscar Winner: Avatar: The Way of Water
Book Oscar Winner: Fairy Tale by Stephen King
Beloved, popular, and making big, ambitious blockbusters without a miss for as long as we can remember. Stephen King is our James Cameron. It’s why we take him for granted and part of the critical consensus is just haven’t we seen this before, even if the guy is still putting out original, imaginative tent poles that may not be considered high art by critics but are transportive for many. I don’t have strong enough recall to say there was a great scene in Fairy Tale, but it’s Stephen King, how can there not be?
Makeup and Hairstyling | Best Character
Oscar Winner: The Whale
Book Oscar Winner: The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling)
A movie by a well-known director and a book by a well-known author. Like The Whale winning for the prosthetics and fat suit of an obese man, which people are very, very unhappy about, Rowling has leaned into the social media firestorm with her mystery series, first by having a serial killer who disguised himself as a woman to get away with murder (basically a fictional dog whistle of her view that letting men who identify as women into public spaces is dangerous) and in this most recent book by inserting a plot line about an artist who is publicly “canceled” for anti-trans comments. Nonetheless she is read and celebrated still, making many people unhappy that she’s won this prestigious fictional award.
Costume Design | Best Historical/Period Details
Oscar Winner: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Oscar Book Winner: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Lessons in Chemistry is ostensibly a historical novel with social themes that resonate with many readers. Just like the designer of Black Panther who created “a new world that’s based on a real historical anchor.” But for all of the very real themes of race or feminism, who are we kidding? Lessons in Chemistry, like Black Panther, is still 100% pop.
Original Song and Score | Best Lyric or Verse
Oscar Winner: RRR, “Naatu Naatu”
Oscar Book Winner: Bad Bunny, Tití Me Preguntó
Reminder: just like it’s confusing that the Academy deems themselves authoritative on giving an award to a musician, we at the literary Oscars also give out an award to a musician. Having little time to follow new music because I’m reading constantly— so take this with a heaping shovel of salt—the first thought that came to mind was international sensation Bad Bunny, whose infectious vibes, all in Spanish, have put him at the top of the pop charts. I listened to the hits and found an upbeat one, and that’s what wins the award—its music video is also wedding-themed at the end (“Naatu Naatu” is sung at a wedding in RRR)! Here are the two choruses side by side:
Naatu Naatu Naatu, Crazy Naatu.
Naatu Naatu Naatu. Wild Naatu.
Naatu like a green chili.
Naatu like a sharp dagger.
Hey, auntie asked me if I have a lot of girlfriends, a lot of girlfriends
Today I have one, tomorrow I'll have another, hey, but there's no wedding
Auntie asked me if I have a lot of girlfriends, heh, a lot of girlfriends
Today I have one, tomorrow I'll have another
Sound | Best Plot
Oscar Winner: Top Gun: Maverick
Oscar Book Winner: Verity by Colleen Hoover
My made-up analogy for the book equivalent to the Oscar for sound was surprisingly spot on— wouldn’t “best plot” be the exact Oscar Top Gun would win if it were a book? While Verity was originally published in 2018 for the first time, it was reissued as a hardcover book in 2022, thus sneaking in as eligible to the literary Oscars. See where this is going? Verity a book that already happened in some respects, was once a blockbuster off the back of it being reissued (but the hardcover has a brand-new chapter!). Top Gun: Maverick was essentially an extremely done re-tread of the first movie. Verity has extreme mass appeal and, like Top Gun, took over movie theaters with pure fun, Colleen Hoover has dominated the world of books in part because of her page-turning, pure madness entertainment.
Documentary Short | Best Book with Origin in a Magazine/News Article
Oscar Winner: The Elephant Whisperers
Book Oscar Winner: An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong
This may not strictly be in the spirit of how I phrased this award. But Ed Yong is a journalist for the Atlantic, and, no surprise, if you go back through his archive you’ll see he has written many, many articles about animals and their connections to humans. His book is about the wonder of animals and has a huge pedigree behind it (The Elephant Whisperers had Netflix, Ed has a Pulitzer and The Atlantic). An absolute no-brainer for our short doc/book based on a news article pick.
Live Action Short | Best Short Story or Essay Collection
Oscar Winner: An Irish Goodbye
Book Oscar Winner: Happy-Go-Lucky by David Sedaris
I know next to nothing about An Irish Goodbye, except for I watched the one minute trailer and read the log line on IMDB. It looks heartwarming and about family, maybe dysfunctional or dark at times but uplifting and funny in total. Sounds like David Sedaris to me!
Animated Feature | Best Non-Adult Book
Oscar Winner: Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio
Book Oscar Winner: Gallant by V.E. Schwab
Yikes, I really backed myself into a corner here. I don’t read many non-adult books, as I am squarely in the adult world of editing and publishing, so the exercise here was mostly me looking at what popular YA or children’s books came out last year and trying to find the first famous name or adult author that crossed over that I could find. That would be V.E. Schwab who has written a slew of blockbuster fantasy bestsellers for adults and now has a instant #1 bestseller for young adults.
Animated Short | Best Picture/Board Book
Oscar Winner: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
Book Oscar Winner: Hot Dog by Doug Salati
In honor of the IP that this short is based off of, the book that’s been on the New York Times bestseller list for 170 weeks, we’re going to look at the bestseller list for board books and pick the one that’s been on the longest but was published in 2022. The only book on the children’s bestseller list right now that is eligible, because it was published in 2022, hasn’t had a long run (yet) and made it’s debut on the list this week. Big congratulations to Hot Dog for the final literary Oscar of the night.
