Critics’ Finalists Announced

Much as The 9/11 Commission Report made big headlines for its non-fiction National Book Award nomination, the nomination of Bob Dylan’s Chronicles, Vol. 1 for best biography by the National Book Critics Circle (though I’m told the book is deserving of this honor) will likely steal the spotlight in terms of news coverage of the prize. There seems to be a subtext to those fiction finalists, though. In contrast to the NBA brouhaha, the critics’ finalists for fiction aren’t likely to cause much of a stir. In fact, the list of nominees, topped by Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America, looks very much like the set of books that most “critics” were hoping for when they decried the NBA finalists and their obscurity. The AP’s book guy Hillel Italie also notes the switch that the NBA and the NBCC have made this year: “Critics are known for championing the obscure, but this year’s list was filled with prominent names and titles, especially compared with last fall’s National Book Awards, a supposedly more glamorous affair.” I’m wondering if the NBCC is trying to prove a point here. Here are all the finalists:

Fiction:

• The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
• Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
• The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat
• The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
• Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Non-fiction:

• Arc of Justice by Kevin Boyle
• Blue Blood by Edward Conlon
• The Reformation: A History by Diarmaid MacCulloch
• The Working Poor: Invisible in America by David K. Shipler
• Blood Done Sign My Name by Timothy B. Tyson

Biography:

• Chronicles, Vol. 1 by Bob Dylan
• Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
• Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt
• Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart by John Guy
• De Kooning: An American Master by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan

Poetry:

• The School Among the Ruins: Poems 2000-2004 by Adrienne Rich
• Danger on Peaks by Gary Snyder
• Cocktails by D.A. Powell
• The Orchard by Brigit Pegeen Kelly
• Interglacial by James Richardson

Criticism:

• Paper Trail: Selected Prose, 1965-2003 by Richard Howard
• The Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel by James Wood
• Sontag & Kael: Opposites Attract Me by Craig Seligman
• Where You’re at: Notes from the Frontline of a Hip Hop Planet by Patrick Neate
• Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century by Graham Robb

A lifetime achievement award will be given to Louis D. Rubin, Jr., the founder of Algonquin Books. The winners will be announced March 18.