Hello world!
The big news in the book world this week is the announcement of the National Book Award Finalists. For those out there who aren’t buffs in the book business and aren’t familiar with the awards, they originated 60 years ago in an effort to recognize and encourage American literature, both established and new writers alike. They are still going strong, and have narrowed down their categories to heighten the impact of the awards. So, since 1996, winners have been chosen in the categories of Fiction, Non-Fiction, Poetry, and Young People’s Literature.
On October 13, the organization gathered at Flannery O’Connor’s childhood home to listen to Pat Conroy announce the big news. Pat Conroy is a native Georgian best known for his titles The Great Santini (1976), The Prince of Tides (1986), and most recently, South of Broad (2009).
And the nominees are…
Fiction:
Peter Carey, Parrot and Olivier in America (Alfred A. Knopf)
Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule (McPherson & Co.)
Nicole Krauss, Great House (W.W. Norton & Co.)
Lionel Shriver, So Much for That (Harper, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers)
Karen Tei Yamashita, I Hotel (Coffee House Press)
Nonfiction:
Barbara Demick, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
(Spiegel & Grau, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group)
John W. Dower, Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, 9-11, Iraq
(W.W. Norton & Co/The New Press )
Patti Smith, Just Kids (Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers)
Justin Spring, Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Megan K. Stack, Every Man in This Village Is a Liar: An Education in War
(Doubleday)
Poetry:
Kathleen Graber, The Eternal City (Princeton University Press)
Terrance Hayes, Lighthead (Viking Penguin)
James Richardson, By the Numbers (Copper Canyon Press)
C.D. Wright, One with Others (Copper Canyon Press)
Monica Youn, Ignatz (Four Way Books)
Young People’s Literature:
Paolo Bacigalupi, Ship Breaker (Little, Brown & Co.)
Kathryn Erskine, Mockingbird
(Philomel Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group)
Laura McNeal, Dark Water (Alfred A. Knopf)
Walter Dean Myers, Lockdown
(Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers)
Rita Williams-Garcia, One Crazy Summer
(Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers)
Congratulations to all the nominees! And an extra special congratulations to the indie publisher Coffee House Press’s nominee, I Hotel. It’s always nice to find a surprise on the list. The awards will be announced at a ceremony in New York on November 17.
It looks like there are a few more books to add to the reading list…better get reading.
Tags: Coffee House Press, Flannery O'Connor, I Hotel, National Book Awards, Pat Conroy