There’s no mystery as to why award recognition is coveted by writers and publishers alike: in addition to the prestige that accrues to winning a literary prize like the Scotiabank Giller Prize or the Governor General’s Literary Award, there is also money, in the form of a sizable cheque and increased sales at the cash register.

This year’s crop of six nominees for the Man Booker Prize in the U.K. (a list that includes two Canadians, Esi Edugyan and Patrick DeWitt) is the most popular since the prize began, according to The Bookseller. Since the Sept. 6 shortlist announcement, sales of the six books are up 37,500 copies in the U.K., and there are still three weeks to go before the Oct. 18 announcement of the winner. But, is the quality of the books commensurate with their popularity? Not necessarily, writes Sarah Crown in the Guardian.

Crown points out that this year’s jury has commented on wanting to make the shortlist more populist in reaction to past lists that have included more challenging books like Tom McCarthy’s C or Damon Galgut’s In a Strange Room:

On announcing the shortlist, chair of judges Dame Stella Rimington said, “We were looking for enjoyable books. I think they are readable books.” Fellow-judge Chris Mullin echoed the sentiment, saying, “What people said to me when it was announced I would be on the judging panel was, ‘I hope you choose something readable this year.’ That for me was such a big factor. They had to zip along.” And Ion Trewin, literary director of the prize, backed them up. “The publishers on this year’s shortlist are not your traditional list of literary publishers,” he said. “It feels like a significant moment.”

For Crown, however, what is most significant is the fact that this year’s more reader-friendly shortlist is comprised of books that could reasonably be expected to sell well without the Booker endorsement. She feels that one of the functions of a prize like the Booker is to draw attention to worthy authors who might not otherwise get noticed by the book-buying public:

Might it not have been a more worthwhile enterprise to bring to the public’s attention books that they would otherwise have missed? In a cash-strapped publishing industry, which is culling more and more resources from their highbrow, midlist, low-selling authors “ the Booker’s traditional constituency “ would it not be better to highlight the work of some of those authors, in order to save them from oblivion?

The argument for quality over popularity has echoes of the recent controversy surrounding the Giller Prize’s addition of a people’s choice aspect to this year’s longlist. Those who agree (or vehemently disagree) with Crown’s assessment may be given the chance to extend it here a week from Tuesday, when the Giller announces its own shortlist.