This year the National Book Award finalists were released in a series of four longlists consisting of ten books apiece. Five finalists in each category will be selected by October 16, and winners will be announced in New York City on November 20.
Last year, the fiction finalists included far more male authors than female, however the count is even in 2013. Millions readers will be delighted to find George Saunders’s latest story collection on the fiction list. The former Top Ten member was reviewed on our site last May. Saunders is joined by Rachel Kushner, whose second novel “operates outside — above? — many of the current arguments about the novel,” according to our own Bill Morris. Likewise, Millions readers should be familiar with George Packer’s “awe-inspiring X-Ray of the modern American soul” on the nonfiction list.
Here’s a list of the finalists in all four categories with bonus links and excerpts where available:
Fiction:
Pacific by Tom Drury (excerpt)
The End of the Point by Elizabeth Graver (excerpt)
The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner (Millions review, Millions interview)
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri (excerpt)
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra (excerpt)
The Good Lord Bird by James McBride (excerpt)
Someone by Alice McDermott (excerpt)
Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon (first page, excerpt)
Tenth of December by George Saunders (Millions review)
Fools by Joan Silber (Millions interview)
Nonfiction:
Finding Florida: The True Story of the Sunshine State by T.D. Allman (excerpt, audiobook excerpt)
Facing the Wave: A Journey in the Wake of the Tsunami by Gretel Ehrlich (excerpt)
The Wolf and the Watchman: A Father, a Son, and the CIA by Scott C. Johnson (excerpt)
Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin by Jill Lepore (review)
Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields by Wendy Lower
Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861–1865 by James Oakes (review)
The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America by George Packer (Millions review)
The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772–1832 by Alan Taylor (review)
Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington by Terry Teachout (review)
Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, & the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright (review, excerpt)
Poetry:
Metaphysical Dog by Frank Bidart (review)
Bury My Clothes by Roger Bonair-Agard (excerpt)
Stay, Illusion by Lucie Brock-Broido (review)
So Recently Rent a World, New and Selected Poems: 1968–2012 by Andrei Codrescu (interview)
Seasonal Works With Letters on Fire by Brenda Hillman (author reading)
The Big Smoke by Adrian Matejka (excerpt)
American Amnesiac by Diane Raptosh (excerpt)
Black Aperture by Matt Rasmussen
Transfer of Qualities by Martha Ronk
Incarnadine by Mary Szybist (review)
Young People’s Literature:
The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp by Kathi Appelt (review)
Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by K.G. Campbell (review)
A Tangle of Knots by Lisa Graff (excerpt)
The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson (review, excerpt, audiobook excerpt)
The Thing About Luck by Cynthia Kadohata (review)
Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan
Far Far Away by Tom McNeal
Picture Me Gone by Meg Rosoff
The Real Boy by Anne Ursu, illustrated by Erin McGuire
Boxers and Saints by Gene Luen Yang (review)
Figures. If Thousand Autumns… had been nominated, it would not have won. David Mitchell got too popular too quickly, which turns off the people who make up these lists. You can also strike off Carey and Levy, the two most prominent names here — the winner will come from among the remaining four nominees.
Tom B — Does the absence of Mitchell foretell that the same thing will happen when Franzen’s name pops up next year for his latest? All right by me. I’m only 20 or so pages into Thousand Autumns and am having trouble trying to pronounce the names of the myriad characters and keep up with who’s who. Hoping not to have to apply the Rule of 50.