GalleyCat contributor and eBookNewser editor Dianna Dilworth will be covering the National Book Awards tonight at Cipriani Wall Street. Follow her coverage live on our GalleyCat Twitter feed and on this blog. Below, we’ve linked to free samples of all the National Book Awards finalists.
At the ceremony three years ago, this GalleyCat editor interviewed Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell, NBA finalist Salvatore Scibona, NBA executive director Harold Augenbraum and literary blogger Edward Champion about the Great Recession (video embedded above). The stock market had just plunged 400 points and writers gathered for the awards a few blocks from the New York Stock Exchange.
This year, the city is still divided over Occupy Wall Street eviction and readers around the country wonder about the future Occupy Wall Street library. It should make for an interesting evening.
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Shine by Lauren Myracle (Myracle was accidentally nominated, but has since withdrawn from the NBA race)
Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt
Editor’s Note: This post has been edited to note a nomination change