Spear's Book Awards- What the Wealthy Read?

Tragic believes that Spears are a wealth management company based in the UK. May be wrong. Nonetheless, they have introduced a new annual Literary Award which recognised the inaugural winners across six categories in London at a suitably elegant lunch a few days ago. Tragic was not on the invite list and instead enjoyed a cheese and pickle sandwich and a cup of English Breakfast on the verge outside the local brick works.

It has apparently been a difficult year for high wealth individuals, not that they are getting, nor would they expect, a whole lot of sympathy from the lumpen proletariat. A bold move then to launch a book award that has such categories as Coffee Table and Family History - the latter not being intended for the family history of the likes of us of course.

Whilst Tragic may be falling into the ' be not too radical when young lest ye become too conservative when old' category, the books that have made the inaugural short lists and winners circle are excellent. In evidence a slightly reflective theme of 'what the hell went wrong' with it all.

It is impossible to go past a title like Fool's Gold: How Unrestrained Greed Corrupted a Dream, Shattered Global Markets and Unleashed a Catastrophe. Gillian Tett's no-holds barred book won the Financial Book of the Year category. Could there be a severe outbreak of Noblesse Oblige afoot as those who have achieved the pinnacle of wealth refelct on what has passed?

The Biography of the Year was won by Jackie Wullschlager's elegant , Chagall: Love and Exile , whilst the rare category of, Financial History Book of the Year, was won by Liaquat Ahamed's timely, Lords of Finance: 1929, the Great Depression and the Bankers Who Broke the World. For the voyeuristic amongst us, the Coffee-Table Book of the Year was won by Robert Murphy and Ivan Terestchenko for, The Private World of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge.

Hilary Mantel's, Wolf Hall, must be a very fine work to have beaten off a stand-out short list in the novel category. No doubt tickets for her appearence at the inaugural Budleigh Saterton Literary Festival in September, will go through the roof. The winner of the Family History of the Year category was Adam Nicolson, for Sissinghurst , (now a BBC series?).

A welcome addition to Literary Award World with a flying start for the Spears' with quality books. Their various judgeships are to be complimented. The full shortlist (with a list of judges for the curious) can be viewed at Tragic's British book award site, Literary Awards UK. along with official site links etc. Book links below to UK/US Blackwell books.

The only question remaining is how does a low wealth individual such as Tragic get to snuffle a few truffles this lifetime?

2009 Spear's Book Award Winners

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Financial Book of the Year
Gillian Tett, Fool's Gold: How Unrestrained Greed Corrupted a Dream, Shattered Global Markets and Unleashed a Catastrophe (Little, Brown) - In the mid 1990s, at a vast hotel complex on a private Florida beach, dozens of bankers from JP Morgan gathered for what was to become a legendary off-site meeting. It was a wild weekend. But among the drinking, nightclubbing and fist-fights lay a more serious purpose - to assess the possibility of building a business around the new-fangled concepts of credit derivatives. More

Financial History Book of the Year
Liaquat Ahamed, Lords of Finance: 1929, the Great Depression and the Bankers Who Broke the World (William Heinemann) - Many of us take it as a given that the Great Depression resulted from a confluence of inexorable forces beyond any one person or government's control. This title explains how it was the decisions taken by a small number of central bankers that... More

Biography of the Year
Jackie Wullschlager, Chagall: Love and Exile (Allen Lane) - 'This is a masterly biography. Jackie Wullschlager has a painter's eye, a historian's grasp of context and a novelist's pace and momentum. She gives back to Chagall's paintings the sharpness and strangeness that they had for his contemporaries, and she makes the story of his life so gripping that I couldn't put the book down' - Hilary Spurling. More

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Family History of the Year
Adam Nicolson, Sissinghurst (HarperPress) - A fascinating account from award-winning author Adam Nicolson of the history of Nicolson's own national treasure, his family home: Sissinghurst. . More

Novel of the Year
Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall (Fourth Estate)- Lock Cromwell in a deep dungeon in the morning,' says Thomas More, 'and when you come back that night he'll be sitting on a plush cushion eating larks' tongues, and all the gaolers will owe him money.' England, the 1520s. Henry VIII is on the... More

Coffee-Table Book of the Year
Robert Murphy and Ivan Terestchenko - The Private World of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge (Thames & Hudson) - The star pieces from fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent's art collection includes works by Cezanne, Picasso, Mondrian and Matisse. Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge amassed the collection together before the designers death in June 2008. More