It's that time of year again: the Hatchet Job award for the snarkiest review to appear in the previous 12 months. This is only the third year it's been running, and it has already established itself as one of the highlights of the literary scene. And why not? It's winter, everyone needs cheering up – apart, of course, from the writers who have been pilloried – and if the world of books seems at times too cosy and in love with itself, then this is a necessary corrective.

Speaking for myself, but also, perhaps, my trade, I can't help feeling a little ambivalent. Being employed almost exclusively to write about books I like, it is very rare that I get the chance to be nasty about a book, and have come to adopt the rather matronly position of not saying anything if you don't have anything nice to say. (When I last let rip, as I felt obliged to when reviewing Peter Hitchens's book on drugs, I went a bit over the top and suggested that it should never have been published; thus giving Hitchens the opportunity to say that he was, once again, the martyred victim of the liberal-left conspiracy which, despite all appearances to the contrary, runs the country. You live and learn.) Also, most books, even bad ones, are hard to write, and you might wonder whether passing something over in silence might not be the best approach.

But you cannot gainsay the fun to be had. This year we even have the spectacle of a writer appearing twice, as both critic and target: Frederic Raphael, monstered by Craig Brown for his co-authored book (with Joseph Epstein) Distant Intimacy: A Friendship in the Age of the Internet, and himself the begetter of a demolition of John le Carré's A Delicate Truth. Raphael, whose barbed style makes this double-edged appearance look like something that was bound to happen sooner or later, should take this in his stride. He is an old pro, after all.

One does hope, though, that it is the stiletto that will be rewarded rather than the bludgeon. There is also the question of whether the very existence of the award encourages critics to be rather meaner than they would otherwise have been. But, really, hurrah for the prize. Martin Amis, himself no stranger to the damning review, whether as perpetrator or victim, has called the book review "the lowest and noblest literary form", and critics have continually, and for ever, been made to feel like tapeworms. Lord Copper in Scoop, when searching for an example of the humblest of his employees, lit upon the figure of the book critic. Orwell's Confessions of a Book Reviewer still makes horribly uncomfortable reading, nearly 70 years after its publication. So you can't grumble too much if we in Grub Street let our hair down and celebrate those occasions when we can gnaw on the hand of the trade that feeds us.

Some tasters of the reviews competing for 'the angriest, funniest, most trenchant book review of the past 12 months':

Craig Brown on Distant Intimacy: A Friendship in the Age of the Internet by Frederic Raphael and Joseph Epstein in the Daily Mail

"The first thing to be said about their exchanges is how extraordinarily unpleasant they are [...] Anyone unfamiliar with the literary world will, I think, be astonished at the ease with which these grand old men of letters turn into queeny old hairdressers, furiously bitching about their younger, prettier or more highly regarded rivals."

Frederic Raphael on A Delicate Truth by John le Carré in the TLS

"Le Carré affects, as so often, to be making daring revelations about How Things Really Work. In the clever process, he stretches his thrills with mixed clichés, idiosyncratic phrases (can people 'go faint at the knees'?) and witless dialogue whaleboned with 'he retorted stiffly' and the like."

Rachel Cooke on Strictly Ann: The Autobiography by Ann Widdecombe in the Observer

"Is Widdecombe's writing any better than her dancing? No. About the best you can say for her prose is that it is accurate. Her grammar is fine – Ann is a stickler for grammar – and her anecdotes make sense in that they have a beginning, a middle and an end. [...] But in every other respect her memoirs bear a strong resemblance to her paso doble: no rhythm, no beauty, no humour and, above all, no feeling."

AA Gill on Autobiography by Morrissey in the Sunday Times

"This is a book that cries out like one of his maudlin ditties to be edited. But were an editor to start, there would be no stopping. It is a heavy tome, devoid of insight, warmth, wisdom or likeability. It is a potential firelighter of vanity, self-pity and logorrhoeic dullness. Putting it in Penguin Classics doesn't diminish Aristotle or Homer or Tolstoy; it just roundly mocks Morrissey, and this is a humiliation constructed by the self-regard of its victim."

David Sexton on The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton in the Evening Standard

"Let's concede that The Luminaries is a stunning feat of construction. The Booker judges knew, whatever else its merits, they were giving the prize to a tremendously technically accomplished piece of work. I suspect some exhausted reviewers praised it for the same reason. It doesn't necessarily make it any good, of course. A ship made of matchsticks in a bottle is a feat of construction, but not necessarily a great work of art."