Al Gore wins Quill book prize, Doctorow misses out

NEW YORK, Oct 11 (Reuters) Al Gore's ''An Inconvenient Truth'' and authors offering touching, humorous stories dominated the second Quill Book Awards, a book prize event aimed at giving some Oscar-style red carpet extravagance to the book publishing world.

The Quills, setting itself apart from other more sober literary awards, featured a line-up of stars from the television, book and entertainment industries presenting winners and commemorating authors and publishing houses.

The winners honored yesterday were chosen by the public in online voting from a list of nominees in 19 categories.

Gore's environmentalist book won in the history, current events and politics section. The former vice president was not present to accept the award, but thanked publishers and editors for ''making something we are all immensely proud of'' in a statement read out at the gala event.

The top prize of Book of the Year went to actor and playwright Tyler Perry's ''Don't Make A Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings,'' in which Perry uses his alter ego Madea to comment on love and life. It also topped the humor category.

''When I was writing this I was just having fun,'' said Perry in a videotaped acceptance speech.

A popular favorite ''Marley and Me'' -- newspaper columnist John Grogan's tribute to his Labrador retriever -- won two categories including best audio book and the highly competitive biography category, beating Joan Didion's ''The Year of Magical Thinking'' as well as journalist Anderson Cooper's memoir of war and survival.

Other major literary works that missed out on awards included E L Doctorow's Civil War novel ''The March'' in the general fiction category, losing to Christopher Moore's ''A Dirty Job,'' and Stephen King's ''Cell'', which lost in the fantasy and horror genre to Diana Gabaldon's ''A Breath of Snow and Ashes.'' The children's middle grade book award went to ''The Penultimate Peril'' by Lemony Snicket, aka author Daniel Handler. In accepting the award, Handler poked fun at the image of the sometimes stiff book world, saying ''literature should be dominated by a small elite group of tastemakers.'' The nominees were chosen by 6,000 booksellers and librarians from among English-language books marketed to the United States in the year to June 30.

Last year's awards were dominated by J.K. Rowling, but with no Harry Potter book published this year, the major awards were thrown open.

The event will be broadcast by NBC on October 28.

Reuters SAM GC1257