30 September, 2016
HEYWOOD HILL, THE LONDON INDEPENDENT BOOKSHOP, ANNOUNCES THE WORLD’S FIRST LIFETIME LITERARY PRIZE—FOR READERS
To mark its 80th anniversary, Heywood Hill is proud to present The Library of a Lifetime free to enter Prize Draw. The winner will receive a new hardback book a month FOR LIFE
London, England—30 September 2016—Heywood Hill, the legendary independent London bookshop, is launching the world’s first major literary prize focused on readers of books, rather than writers. The first prize winner will receive the Library of a Lifetime: one newly published and hand-picked hardback book per month, for life, delivered anywhere in the world.
To enter, readers must nominate the single book that has meant the most to them, published in English since 1936 when Heywood Hill was founded —eighty years ago this year. As part of the campaign, and to kick things off, Heywood Hill has asked a number of writers to share their own nominations, including Julian Barnes, Antonia Fraser, Kazuo Ishiguro, among others.
The idea for the prize emerged from Heywood Hill’s popular “A Year in Books” subscription service. After an in-depth reading consultation with Heywood Hill’s senior booksellers to determine particular literary interests, subscribers receive a new book each month. As their tastes or interests change, they can consult with Heywood Hill staff to evolve their subscription year-to-year. The Library of a Lifetime competition, which is free to enter via www.heywoodhill.com/competition, will include a similar process, during which the shop’s booksellers will work with the winner to understand their taste. The prize draw closes at midnight on 31 October 2016.
“Every reader in the world will want to know about this life-changing prize. Whoever wins the first prize will never have to buy a book again. Instead they can look forward to a lifelong relationship with our bookshop and our booksellers. We know that our A Year in Books subscribers really value this service. Every person is different. Before we start, we will sit down with the prize winner and find out their reading preferences, and any likes and dislikes. For the winner it will be an intellectual adventure of a lifetime,” said Karin Scherer, senior Heywood Hill bookseller who works on the shop’s A Year in Books programme.
The “A Year in Books” subscription service reflects Heywood Hill’s adaptive approach to bookselling. For decades the shop has informally sent books to customers on a monthly basis, including to a customer in Connecticut who has been receiving books monthly from Heywood Hill for more than 40 years. As digital sales increased, the shop formalized the subscription service in 2013 – it has proved very popular with readers around the world.
In addition to the Library of a Lifetime first prize, Heywood Hill is offering second and third prizes. Second prize will be a one year subscription to A Year in Books, providing 12 new hardback books per month for a year. The third prize is the Hardback 6 version of A Year in Books: a hardback book every other month for a year.
As entries are submitted, readers will have the opportunity to automatically share their selected book on social media platforms. Once the competition is over, Heywood Hill plans to use the submissions to create a crowd-sourced list for anyone looking to create a modern library covering the last eighty years of English-language literature and non-fiction.
Works in translation are permitted as entries as long as their first appearance in English in print occurred in 1936 or thereafter.