PEN has released the shortlists for the 2013 PEN Literary Awards, revealing the nominees for ten different prizes this year.
Below, we’ve collected free samples of all the nominated books, a great way to explore the best books of the past year.
If you want more free book samples, we made similar literary mixtapes linking to free samples of the most overlooked books of the year, the ALA Youth Media Award winners, the 2012 Man Booker Longlist, the Best Horror Novels of the Year, the LA Times Book Prize nominees, and the Nebula Award nominees.
PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize Shortlist ($25,000): “To an author whose debut work—a first novel or collection of short stories published in 2012—represents distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise.”
A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash
A Naked Singularity by Sergio de la Pava
My Only Wife by Jac Jemc
Happiness Is a Chemical in the Brain by Lucia Perillo
Battleborn by Claire Vaye Watkins
PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction Shortlist ($10,000): “To an author of a distinguished book of general nonfiction possessing notable literary merit and critical perspective and illuminating important contemporary issues which has been published in the United States during 2011 or 2012.”
Iron Curtain by Anne Applebaum
Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
Moby-Duck by Donovan Hohn
God’s Hotel by Victoria Sweet
PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay Shortlist ($10,000): “For a book of essays published in 2012 that exemplifies the dignity and esteem that the essay form imparts to literature.”
What Light Can Do by Robert Hass
The Story of America by Jill Lepore
Waiting for the Barbarians by Daniel Mendelsohn
PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Shortlist ($10,000): For a book of literary nonfiction on the subject of the physical or biological sciences published in 2012.
The Forest Unseen by David George Haskell
The Violinist’s Thumb by Sam Kean
Subliminal by Leonard Mlodinow
Spillover by David Quammen
Rabid by Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy
PEN Open Book Award Shortlist ($5,000): “For an exceptional book-length work of literature by an author of color published in 2012.”
Gun Dealers’ Daughter by Gina Apostol
When My Brother Was an Aztec by Natalie Diaz
Allegiance by Francine J. Harris
Our Andromeda by Brenda Shaughnessy
The Grey Album by Kevin Young
PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography Shortlist ($5,000): “For a distinguished biography published in 2012.”
James Joyce by Gordon Bowker
All We Know by Lisa Cohen
A Difficult Woman by Alice Kessler-Harris
The Lives of Margaret Fuller by John Matteson
The Black Count by Tom Reiss
PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing Shortlist ($5,000): “To honor a nonfiction book on the subject of sports published in 2012.”
Over Time by Frank Deford
Road to Valor by Aili and Andres McConnon
Like Any Normal Day by Mark Kram, Jr.
Floyd Patterson by W.K. Stratton
PEN/Steven Kroll Award for Picture Book Writing Shortlist ($5,000): “To a writer for an exceptional story illustrated in a picture book published in 2012.”
Snakes by Nic Bishop
Oh, No! by Candace Fleming and illustrator Andrea Castellani
I Lay My Stitches Down by Cynthia Grady and illustrator Michele Wood
Those Rebels, John & Tom by Barbara Kerley and illustrator Edwin Fotheringham
The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau by Michelle Markel and illustrator Amanda Hall
PEN Award for Poetry in Translation Shortlist ($3,000): For a book-length translation of poetry into English published in 2012.
Spit Temple by Cecilia Vicuña (Ugly Duckling Presse), Rosa Alcalá
Diadem by Marosa di Giorgio (BOA Editions), Adam Giannelli
Tales of a Severed Head by Rachida Madani (Yale University Press), Marilyn Hacker
The Smoke of Distant Fires by Eduardo Chirinos (Open Letter Books), G. J. Racz
Almost 1 Book/Almost 1 Life by Elfriede Czurda (Burning Deck), Rosmarie Waldrop
The Shock of the Lenders and Other Poems by Jorge Santiago Perednik (Action Books), Molly Weigel
PEN Translation Prize ($3,000) Shortlist: “For a book-length translation of prose into English published in 2012.”
A Long Day’s Evening by Bilge Karasu (City Lights Books), Aron Aji and Fred Stark
Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector (New Directions), Alison Entrekin
Down the Rabbit Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Rosalind Harvey
The Cardboard House by Martín Adán (New Directions), Katherine Silver
The Island of Second Sight by Albert Vigoleis Thelen (Overlook Press), Donald O. White