Awash in awards

Lisa pointed out in a comment on yesterday’s post that I neglected to mention the finalists in the Young People’s Literature Category of the National Book Award. That’ll teach me to cut corners. So here they are (and the poetry nominees as well… they need the love, too):Young People’s LiteratureHoney, Baby, Sweetheart by Deb Caletti — excerptGodless by Pete Hautman — excerptHarlem Stomp! A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance by Laban Carrick Hill — Hill on the novelThe Legend of Buddy Bush by Shelia P. Moses — excerptLuna by Julie Anne Peters — excerptPoetryShoah Train by William Heyen — a poemCollected Poems by Donald Justice (posthumous) — obitThe Rest of Love by Carl Phillips — some poemsGoest by Cole Swensen — poemsDoor In The Mountain: New And Collected Poems, 1965-2003 by Jean Valentine — poems (cool website)A Visit from DoctorowE.L. Doctorow described writers as prophets and the act of using a library as a sacrament in an obliquely political and densely literary talk at Northwestern on Wednesday. He decried President Bush, describing his “dismal public conduct so shot through with piety.” In his talk, entitled “Apprehending Reality,” he used the Bible as a jumping off point citing it as the first appearance of many literary techniques: adaptation, driving a plot with characters and working backwards from conclusion to motivation as a mystery writer might. From his Biblical introduction, he made the leap to the present day divide in America “between the old stories and the new, between the writers of the old and the impertinent writers of the new.” The talk was adapted from an essay in Doctorow’s book, Reporting the Universe. Doctorow’s most recent work of fiction is Sweet Land Stories.