Reader's Digest Launches Readers' Choice Awards

Posted on January 2, 2004

James Patterson and Ann Rule won the 2003 Readers' Choice Awards from Reader's Digest. Gossip doyen Liz Smith, a best selling author and a longtime literacy advocate, presented the awards to Patterson and Rule at a party in their honor at New York City's Rainbow Room.

The Reader's Digest Readers' Choice Awards are a literary prize selected by readers to honor writers of fiction and nonfiction. Patterson, this year's winner for fiction writing, and nonfiction winner Rule were selected through an Internet poll last September.

James Patterson is the author of The Big Bad Wolf (Little Brown & Company), the latest volume in the Alex Cross series. It was an immediate bestseller when it was published in November. Patterson has written more than a dozen top-selling books, two of them adapted for major motion pictures starring Morgan Freeman, Kiss the Girls (1997) and Along Came a Spider (2001).

Ann Rule's latest book is Heart Full of Lies (Free Press), which immediately hit bestseller lists upon release this past October. A Michigan native and former Seattle cop, Rule has twenty bestsellers to her credit. Several of her books have been made into television movies.

In the nationwide poll conducted for Reader's Digest, voters selected Patterson and Rule for their demonstrated storytelling ability and their mass-market influence. Both of the authors have long-standing ties to Reader's Digest, having appeared in the magazine or book pages recently. Reader's Digest will make a donation in the names of Rule and Patterson to the writing program of their choice.