The National Book Award honors the best in literature written by American citizens. It is an award 
given “by writers for writers.” The award categories have expanded and contracted since it started in 1950, at one point there were several categories, since 1996 there are four: fiction, non-fiction, poetry and young people’s literature. Publishers nominate their books, although a judge can suggest an absent book (note to authors, if your publisher doesn’t send in your book and the committee nominates it, fire your publisher). The finalists are chosen by a committee of five independent judges (nominated by previous winners and nominees) and announced in October. The judges for each category meet the day of the award dinner to decide the winner and he or she is announced during a fancy event at a literary location, this year last night on Wall Street (at least something joyous occurred there). Here they are, run to your local independent bookstore to purchase them:
Peter Matthiessen was nominated, but lost, in 1966 for At Play in the Fields of the Lord. The literary elite told him not to worry, that he would be back. Well, finally he made it back and won. In his acceptance speech for winning with Shadow Country, he noted that all of the other finalist writers were excellent, that they would be back, but he hoped it wouldn’t take 43 years. The other 2008 nominees in fiction are The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon, Telex from Cuba by Rachel Kushner, Home by Marilynne Robinson, and The End by Salvatore Scibona.
The judges awarded the non-fiction prize to Annette Gordon-Reed for The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family which traces Thomas Jefferson’s black family. Sometimes timing is everything. Ms. Gordon-Reed didn’t plan to publish the book during the year the country elected its first black president, but sometimes lightening strikes in a very good way. The other nominees were Drew Gilpin Faust for This Republic of Suffereing: Death and the American Civil War, Jane Mayer for The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals, Jim Sheeler for Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Livesand Joan Wickersham for The Suicide Index: Putting My Father’s Death in Order.
Mark Doty won the poetry award for Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems, which includes poems that Mr. Doty selected from previous work that he feels has continuing relevance, along with new poems. The other finalists for poetry are Frank Bidart for Watching the Spring Festival, Reginald Gibbons for Creatures of a Day, Richard Howard for Without Saying, and Patricia Smith for Blood Dazzler.
I’m assuming the Young People’s Literature category is a fancy way of saying “YA,” so I’ll be sharing this list with my kids. The winner is What I Saw and How I Liedby Judy Blundell, a coming of age story about a 15 year old girl growing up in the post WWII era. The other nominated books were Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson, The Underneath by Kathi Appelt, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart, and The Spectacular Now by Tim Tharp.
Listen to the winning authors reading from their works.
Tags: award, recommended reading
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