The finalists for the annual NBCC award are now out. The fiction list pairs a couple of less buzzed about books with three that have already received either award love or copious amounts of ink in the book pages and on blogs. Here are the finalists for fiction and non-fiction with excerpts and other links where available. As a side note, the NBCC award is particularly interesting in that it is the only major award that pits American books against British ones.
Fiction
- Vikram Chandra, Sacred Games (excerpt, Garth’s review)
- Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao (excerpt, Edan’s review)
- Hisham Matar, In The Country of Men (excerpt, Booker shortlisted)
- Joyce Carol Oates, The Gravediggers Daughter (excerpt)
- Marianne Wiggins, The Shadow Catcher (excerpt, a Millions most anticipated book)
Nonfiction
- Philip Gura, American Transcendentalism (excerpt)
- Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America 1815-1848 (New Yorker review)
- Harriet Washington, Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present (excerpt)
- Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: A History of the CIA (excerpt, NBA Winner)
- Alan Weisman, The World Without Us (excerpt)
For more on the NBCC Awards and the finalists in the other categories, check out the NBCC’s blog.
