Thursday, November 18, 2010

2010 National Book Award Winners announced

Yesterday, the National Book Foundation announced the 2010 National Book Award Winners.

This year’s slate of winners, in four categories, included:

Fiction – “Lord of Misrule” by Jaimy Gordon
Nonfiction – “Just Kids” by Patti Smith
Poetry – “Lighthead” by Terrance Hayes
Young People’s Literature – “Mockingbird” by Kathryn Erskine

These four books were selected from 1,115 books nominated for the National Book Awards, including 302 in the fiction category, 435 in nonfiction, 148 in poetry and 230 in young people’s literature.

From these books, judges narrowed them down to five finalists in each category. The non-winning finalists in each category included the following books.

Fiction:
“Parrot and Olivier in America” by Peter Carey
“Great House” by Nicole Krauss
“So Much for That” by Lionel Shriver
“I Hotel” by Karen Tei Yamashita

Nonfiction:
“Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea” by Barbara Demick
“Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, 9-11, Iraq” by John W. Dower
“Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward” by Justin Spring
“Every Man in This Village is a Liar: An Education in War” by Megan K. Stack

Poetry:
“The Eternal City” by Kathleen Graber
“By the Numbers” by James Richardson
“One with Others” by C.D. Wright
“Ignatz” by Monica Youn

Young People’s Literature:
“Ship Breaker” by Paolo Bacigalupi
“Dark Water” by Laura McNeal
“Lockdown” by Walter Dean Myers
“One Crazy Summer” by Rita Williams-Garcia

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 National Book Foundation and the National Book Awards, visit www.nationalbook.org.

4 comments:

  1. I already had a copy of Mockingbird, that I've yet to read, and I ordered a copy of Lords of Misrule today. Cold Mountain and The World According to Garp were fabulous books, and rightly deserving of the award.

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  2. Did you ever see "The World According to Garp" movie with Robin Williams? What did you think about it? I'm assuming that the book is better than the movie, right?

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  3. I didn't know there was a movie! I'll put it on my Netflix list and let you know how it compares. But to date, I've never seen a movie that was better than the book!

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  4. I take it that the book version of "Cold Mountain" is a lot better than the film version too. I kind of remember feeling that there was a lot left out when I watched the movie. (I haven't read the book.)

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