The National Book Award finalists were revealed today on the Think Out Loud radio show. We live blogged all the action. Below, we’ve linked to free samples of all the finalists.
Here’s more about the announcement: “The twenty Finalists for the 62nd National Book Awards will be announced on Oregon Public Broadcasting’s morning radio program, Think Out Loud, in front of a live audience at the new Literary Arts Center in Portland, Oregon.”
Fiction Finalists
The Sojourn by Andrew Krivak
The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht
The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
Binocular Vision by Edith Pearlman
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
Nonfiction finalists
The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism by Deborah Baker
Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution by Mary Gabriel
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt
Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable
Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss (first graphic novel ever included in this category)
Poetry Finalists
Head Off & Split by Nikky Finnery
The Chameleon Couch by Yusef Komunyakaa
Double Shadow by Carl Phillips
Tonight No Poetry Will Serve: Poems: 2007-2010 by Adrienne Rich
Devotions by Bruce Smith
Young People’s Literature finalists
Chime by Franny Billingsley
My Name is Not Easy by Debby Dahl Edwardson
Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai
Flesh and Blood So Cheap by Albert Marrin
Shine by Lauren Myracle
Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt
12:07 Young People’s Literature nominees coming up first, but begins with interviews with National Book Foundation executive director Harold Augenbraum and 2001 National Book Award winner Virginia Euwer Wolff.
12:10 Wolff on the judging process: “It’s comforting to know we are being judged by people who do what we do.”
12:01: Think Out Loud host David Miller just opened his show. The official broadcast will start in a few minutes.