Book Award Roundup

The winner of the 2008 Booker Prize was announced earlier this week. Click here for an interview with the winning author.


The 2008 National Book Award finalists were announced earlier today. The National Book Awards celebrate the best of American literature in four categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People's Literature.

Fiction Finalists:

• The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon
• Telex from Cuba by Rachel Kushner*
• Shadow Country by Peter Mattiessen
• Home by Marilynne Robinson*
• The End by Salvatore Scibona

Nonfiction Finalists:

• This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust*
• The Hemingses of Monitcello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed
• The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals by Jane Mayer*
• Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives by Jim Sheeler*
• The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order by Joan Wikersham

(*available from PCLS)

The winners will be announced on November 19.