Thursday, October 16, 2008

National Book Award Finalists

The finalists have been announced for the 2008 National Book Awards, and I'm delighted that The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks has been selected in the Young People's Literature category. It's the only National Book Award finalist that I've read this year, so here are some more books to add to my ever-growing reading list, starting with the YA category because, gosh, it ought to be mentioned first somewhere:

Young Adult Literature
Laurie Halse Anderson, Chains
Kathi Appelt, The Underneath
Judy Blundell, What I Saw and How I Lied
E. Lockhart, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
Tim Tharp, The Spectacular Now

Fiction:
Aleksandar Hemon, The Lazarus Project
Rachel Kushner, Telex from Cuba
Peter Matthiessen, Shadow Country
Marilynne Robinson, Home
Salvatore Scibona, The End

Nonfiction:
Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War
Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
Jane Mayer, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals
Jim Sheeler, Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives
Joan Wickersham, The Suicide Index: Putting My Father’s Death in Order

Poetry:
Frank Bidart, Watching the Spring Festival
Mark Doty, Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems
Reginald Gibbons, Creatures of a Day
Richard Howard, Without Saying
Patricia Smith, Blood Dazzler

Congratulations to all the finalists! So, who's read any of these, and what do you think--are they deserving of a National Book Award?

6 comments:

  1. I haven't read a single one of those books, but Home is on my bookshelf patiently waiting.

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  2. Not one. I'm going to have to do some research on some of those titles and see if they should be added to the TBR list.

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  3. nope, not a one for me either.

    I guess we are not that well read after all...lol

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  4. None for me, either.

    I've been reading more Young Adult Fiction than anything else lately, so I look forward to checking out some of the ones on the YAF list.

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  5. I'm currently reading and really enjoying The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. I haven't read any of the others on the YA list, so I don't know how it compares, but I think it's great.

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  6. always one in every group..lol

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