National Book Critics Circle Award Finalists

The National Book Critics Circle Award finalists for the publishing year 2017 — deep breath — have been announced!

Fiction:

Nonfiction:

Gulf: The Making of An American Sea, by Jack Davis ¦ Amazon
The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America, by Frances FitzGerald ¦ Amazon
The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia, by Masha Gressen ¦ Amazon
Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe, by Kapka Kassabova ¦ Amazon
A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes, by Adam Rutherford ¦ Amazon

Biography:

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, by Caroline Frasier ¦ Amazon
The Invention of Angela Carter: A Biography, by Edmund Gordon ¦ Amazon
The Kelloggs: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek, by Howard Markel ¦ Amazon
Gorbachev: His Life and Times, by William Taubman ¦ Amazon
Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times, by Kenneth Whyte ¦ Amazon

Autobiography:

The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir, by Thi Bui ¦ Amazon
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, by Roxane Gay ¦ Amazon
Admissions: A Life in Brain Surgery, by Henry Marsh ¦ Amazon
The Girl from the Metropol Hotel: Growing Up in Communist Russia, by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya and translated from the Russian by Anna Summers ¦ Amazon
Nine Continents: A Memoir In and Out of China, by Xioulu Guo ¦ Amazon

Poetry:

Fourth Person Singular, by Nuar Alsadir ¦ Amazon
Earthling, by James Longenbach ¦ Amazon
Whereas, by Layli Long Soldier ¦ Amazon
The Darkness of Snow, by Frank Ormsby ¦ Amazon
Directions for Use, by Ana Ristovic and translated from the Serbian by Steven Teref and Maja Teref ¦ Amazon

Criticism:

You Play the Girl: On Playboy Bunnies, Stepford Wives, Train Wrecks & Other Mixed Messages, by Carina Chocano ¦ Amazon
The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story, by Edwidge Danticat ¦ Amazon
Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood and History, by Camille Dungy ¦ Amazon
Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions, by Valeria Luiselli ¦ Amazon
Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts and Fake News, by Kevin Young ¦ Amazon