The upcoming German Bookshop Award ceremony next week at the Leipzig Book Fair has been canceled "after a controversial decision by the country's minister of state for culture to remove three left-wing candidates from consideration," dpa (via Yahoo News) reported. Minister Wolfram Weimer vetoed the nominated bookshops due to what were termed "findings relevant to the protection of the constitution."
The awards are given to about 100 independent bookshops, with prize money ranging from €7,000 (about $8,060) to €25,000 (about $28,795). The event cancellation does not affect the distribution of prize money and certificates to the winners.
The German Bookshop Award (Deutscher Buchhandlungspreis) honors booksellers who "offer wide literary range of books in stock or cultural event programs, which follow innovative business models or are committed to promoting reading and literature," the European & International Booksellers Federation's Newsflash reported. Nominations put forward by the jury are usually approved by the Minister of Culture and Media. Börsenblatt reported the award jury has distanced itself from the minister's intervention.
The three excluded bookshops are Rote Straße in Göttingen; Golden Shop in Bremen; and Buchladen zur schwankenden Weltkugel in Berlin, which are suing Weimer, the Berliner reported.
In a statement released after the minister's decision, the EIBF said it "strongly supports the German Booksellers and Publisher Association (Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels) in condemning the exclusion of three bookshops from the German Bookshop Award. This decision, made without transparency or due process, undermines the award's integrity and threatens the fundamental values of our industry....
"Exclusions based on political assumptions--without evidence--threaten these fundamental values. Booksellers serve the public by making a wide spectrum of ideas, perspectives, and debates accessible.... Recognition of a bookshop's cultural achievements should never depend on the possible political orientation of its product range. Therefore, EIBF urges the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media to review his decision and reinstate the prize laureates immediately, or provide clear, verifiable evidence for the exclusion."
EIBF president Fabian Paagman commented: "Booksellers serve the public by making a wide spectrum of ideas, perspectives and debates accessible. Through their freedom to curate and offer diverse catalogues, they contribute to a pluralistic cultural landscape and to a well-informed, intellectually curious society. Such openness to ideas and debate is one of the essential foundations of a healthy democratic culture. The presence of particular titles in a bookshop must therefore be understood as part of this broader mission of providing access to knowledge, debate and literature."
The International Publishers Association stated: "The IPA supports the European and International Booksellers Federation, and our member, the German Booksellers and Publishers Association. It is with great surprise and disappointment that, in a country so committed to freedom of expression as Germany, we see three bookstores excluded from consideration on the basis of a procedure designed to protect against terrorism but with no detailed justification which would allow them to contest such allegations. We join calls to the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media to review this decision."
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NielsenIQ BookData and Media Control, which provides charts data for Germany, will publish official BookTok Charts for the U.K., in partnership with TikTok, the Bookseller reported. Media Control "will combine two key 'success' factors of the modern book market into one single official ranking: verified retail sales data collected by NielsenIQ BookData and the engagement from the #BookTok community."
Based on a combined dataset, the official Top 20 #BookTok Charts UK will be compiled, resulting in a "transparent, market-relevant ranking, produced monthly, that reflects both actual purchasing power and the dynamic influence of the BookTok community," the companies said.
Andre Breedt, managing director at NielsenIQ BookData, commented: "#BookTok has had a significant influence on the book market. By bringing the #BookTok charts to the UK, our data foundation ensures that these trends can be assessed transparently and reliably, based on real sales figures."