Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Which books do YOU think will win National Book Awards this year?

The National Book Foundation announced the long list of finalists for the 2013 National Book Awards last week. This year, National Book Awards will be given in four categories, including Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry and Young People’s Literature.

Ten books made the long list of finalists in the Fiction category. Those books included:

- “Bleeding Edge” by Thomas Pynchon
- “A Constellation of Vital Phenomena” by Anthony Marra
- “The End of the Point” by Elizabeth Graver
- “The Flamethrowers” by Rachel Kushner
- “Fools” by Joan Silber
- “The Good Lord Bird” by James McBride
- The Lowland” by Jhumpa Lahiri
- “Pacific” by Tom Drury
- “Someone” by Alice McDermott
- “Tenth of December” by George Saunders

Ten books made the long list of finalists in the Nonfiction category. Those books included:

- “Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin” by Jill Lepore
- “Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington” by Terry Teachout
- “Facing the Wave: A Journey in the Wake of the Tsunami” by Gretel Ehrlich
- “Finding Florida: The True Story of the Sunshine State” by T.D. Allman
- “Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865” by James Oakes
- “Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief” by Lawrence Wright
- “Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields” by Wendy Lower
- “The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832” by Alan Taylor
- “The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America” by George Packer
- “The Wolf and the Watchman: A Father, a Son and the CIA” by Scott C. Johnson

Ten works made the long list of finalists in the Poetry category. Those works included:

- “American Amnesiac” by Diane Raptosh
- “The Big Smoke” by Adrian Matejka
- “Black Aperture” by Matt Rasmussen
- “Bury My Clothes” by Roger Bonair-Agard
- “Incarnadine: Poems” by Mary Szybist
- “Metaphysical Dog” by Frank Bidart
- “Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire” by Brenda Hillman
- “So Recently Rent a World” by Andrei Codrescu
- “Stay, Illusion” by Lucie Brock-Broido
- “Transfer of Qualities” by Martha Ronk

Ten works made the long list of finalists in the Young People’s Literature category. Those works include:

- “Boxers & Saints” by Gene Luen Yang
- “Far Far Away” by Tom McNeal
- “Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures” by Kate DiCamillo
- “Picture Me Gones” by Meg Rosoff
- “The Real Boy” by Anne Ursu
- “The Summer Prince” by Alaya Dawn Johnson
- “A Tangle of Knots” by Lisa Graff
- “The Thing About Luck” by Cynthia Kadohata
- “The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp” by Kathi Appelt
- “Two Boys Kissing” by David Levithan

Five finalists will be chosen from each of these long lists on Oct. 16, and the winners will be announced on Nov. 20.

Many of you will be familiar with some of the past National Book Award Winners, especially from the fiction category. Past NBA fiction winners include “From Here to Eternity” by James Jones, “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, “The World According to Garp” by John Irving, “Rabbit is Rich” by John Updike, “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker, “All the Pretty Horses” by Cormac McCarthy and “Cold Mountain” by Charles Frazier.

For more information about the finalists mentioned above and past winners and finalists, visit www.nationalbook.org.

In the end, how many of the books mentioned above have you had the chance to read? Which did you like or dislike? Which would you recommend and why? Which books would you pick to win this year’s round of National Book Awards? Let us know in the comments section below.

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