Today they announced the five finalists for each category of the National Book Awards.
Fiction:
- The Flamethrowers, by Rachel Kushner
- The Lowland, by Jhumpa Lahiri
- The Good Lord Bird, by James McBride
- Bleeding Edge, by Thomas Pynchon
- Tenth of December, by George Saunders
Nonfiction:
- Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin, by Jill Lepore
- Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields, by Wendy Lower
- The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, by George Packer
- The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, by Alan Taylor
- Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, & the Prison of Belief, by Lawrence Wright
Poetry:
- Metaphysical Dog, by Frank Bidart
- Stay, Illusion, by Lucie Brock-Broido
- The Big Smoke, by Adrian Matejka
- Black Aperture, by Matt Rasmussen
- Incarnadine: Poems, by Martha Ronk
Young People’s Literature:
- The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp, by Kathi Appelt
- The Think About Luck, by Cynthia Kadohata
- Far Far Away, by Tom McNeal
- Picture Me Gone, by Meg Rosoff
- Boxers & Saints, by Gene Luen Yang
Typo correction for you: It’s “Frank Bidart”, not “Frank Birart” who wrote “Metaphysical Dog”.
Thanks.
I’d put money on Kushner, Wright, Brock-Broido and Rosoff…but I did the same with Jim Crace…
Check out the 20 finalists and their quick summaries at http://www.awardpedia.com/National-Book-Awards. A few of them have preview available:
http://www.awardpedia.com/The-Internal-Enemy-Slavery-and-War-in-Virginia
http://www.awardpedia.com/The-Flamethrowers
http://www.awardpedia.com/The-Thing-About-Luck
http://www.awardpedia.com/The-True-Blue-Scouts-of-Sugar-Man-Swamp
http://www.awardpedia.com/The-Unwinding-An-Inner-History-of-the-New-America
Cheers!
Its between Rachel Kushner and George Saunders.
And James McBride won. I wasn’t even close.