The Associated Press's Hillel Italie, The New York Times' Julie Bosman and Reuters' Christine Kearney had the bare bones, while Variety's Steven Zeitchik added a movie-centric angle, but the prize for best print coverage goes to the Spokane Spokesman-Review's Jim Kershner, on hand to cover hometown faves Timothy Egan (who won) and Jess Walter (who didn't). "One of judges came up to me and said she loved how subversive my book was," said Walter, in the banquet hall afterward. "That's so great. I'm also really happy for Tim."

More Northwest-centric coverage comes by way of the Seattle Times' Mary Ann Gwinn and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's John Marshall, who got this quote from Egan: "I feel like I'm going to die. I'm having heart palpitations like I just ran a quarter mile. This whole ceremony was so Oscaresque. They announced the winner from the stage and I mouthed the name of the writer whom I thought would win -- Lawrence Wright. I couldn't believe it when they said my name." Rounding things up were the Washington Post's Bob Thompson, who covered the cocktail party as well where talk was all OJ, all the time. Association of American Publishers President Patricia Schroeder, asked how she felt about it, used her fingers to force her mouth into a grin and said: "Delighted." Then she expressed concern that the Simpson news "takes some of the glitter out of this."

Edward Champion provides a compleat (or relatively so) listing of all things Richard Powers, and the LA Times' Paul Lieberman got the chance to talk to graphic novel nominee Gene Yang pre-ceremony. "It is a recognition of work done over the last 10 years," he said. "Art Spiegelman once made a promise that comics could be literature," he said. "I think this shows we're getting there."

UPDATE: The Book Standard team weighs in, matching their mid-show comments to us by describing the evening as reaching "remarkable levels of dull pretension and extraordinary earnestness; this, of course, in the context of an event that has for years persisted in being dull, pretentious and extraordinarily earnest." For PW Daily, however, Rachel Deahl observes that "on an evening during whichmuch of the buzz at the cocktail hour was the announcement of a book by O.J. Simpson, the eloquent praise heaped on writers, editors and publishers was a welcome reminder of the industry's long literary tradition."