Random House's CCV division (whose main imprints are Jonathan Cape, Chatto and Vintage) took the Publisher of the Year prize: star authors Nigella Lawson and Ian McEwan helped CCV achieve spectacular sales growth in 2007, as well as 12 literary prizes.
The program will feature at least 10 Connecticut-based groups, ranging in style from baroque (the Hotchkiss Ensemble) to blues (the CCV Band), cabaret (the Seaton-Sosin Duo) to chamber (Trio Sonata), piano duets (Fabio and Gisele Witkowski) to jazz (Musillami and Simon).
Taking notice of the events in Washington, a local organisation called Citizens for Community Values (CCV) launched a letter-writing campaign to try to block the exhibition.
As WCPO TV reporter Stephen Hill pointed out, if the jury were to declare the works obscene, CCV could have faced similar charges for distributing obscene material through mail.
But CCV boss Richard Cable emphasised that the industry was "not just about the big winners", imploring retailers to keep trying to find audiences for all kinds of books.
In a twisted "what if", the CCV had ill-advisedly generated a mass mailing containing examples of the so-called pornographic works – among them, the artist's self-portrait with a bullwhip in his anus, a man urinating in another man's mouth and several pictures not even by Mapplethorpe.
