2007 National Book Critics Circle Award Finalists

On January 12, 2008, the finalists for this year's NBCC Awards were announced at the City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco. Founded by the National Book Critics Circle, the Awards honor the best books in the categories of fiction, general nonfiction, biography/autobiography, poetry and criticism. The winners will be honored at the annual NBCC Awards Ceremony, to be held on March 6, 2008 in New York City.

The finalists for the 2007 NBCC Awards are:

FICTION
SACRED GAMES by Vikram Chandra (HarperCollins)
THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO by Junot Diaz (Riverhead)
IN THE COUNTRY OF MEN by Hisham Matar (Dial Press)
THE GRAVEDIGGER'S DAUGHTER by Joyce Carol Oates (HarperCollins)
THE SHADOW CATCHER by Marianne Wiggins (Simon & Schuster)

NONFICTION
AMERICAN TRANSCENDENTALISM by Philip Gura (Farrar, Straus, Giroux)
WHAT GOD HATH WROUGHT: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 by Daniel Walker Howe (Oxford University Press)
MEDICAL APARTHEID: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet Washington (Doubleday)
LEGACY OF ASHES: A History of the CIA by Tim Weiner (Doubleday)
THE WORLD WITHOUT US by Alan Weisman (Thomas Dunne/St. Martin's)

AUTOBIOGRAPHY
HEART LIKE WATER: Surviving Katrina and Life in Its Disaster Zone by Joshua Clark (Free Press)
BROTHER, I'M DYING by Edwidge Danticat (Knopf)
THE JOURNALS OF JOYCE CAROL OATES 1973-1982 by Joyce Carol Oates, The Journals of Joyce Carol Oates (Ecco)
WRITING IN AN AGE OF SILENCE by Sara Paretsky (Verso)
RUSSIAN DIARY: A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption and Death in Putin's Russia by Anna Politkovskaya (Random House)

BIOGRAPHY
STANLEY: The Impossible Life Of Africa's Greatest Explorer by Tim Jeal (Yale University Press)
EDITH WHARTON by Hermione Lee (Knopf)
RALPH ELLISON by Arnold Rampersad (Knopf)
John Richardson, THE LIFE OF PICASSO: The Triumphant Years, 1917-1932 by John Richardson (Knopf)
THOMAS HARDY by Claire Tomalin (Penguin Press)

CRITICISM
TWENTY-EIGHT ARTISTS AND TWO SAINTS by Joan Acocella (Pantheon)
ONCE UPON A QUINCEANERA by Julia Alvarez (Viking)
THE TERROR DREAM by Susan Faludi (Metropolitan/Holt)
COLTRANE: The Story of a Sound by Ben Ratliff (Straus)
THE REST IS NOISE: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross (Farrar, Straus, Giroux)

POETRY
ELEGY by Mary Jo Bang (Graywolf)
MODERN LIFE by Matthea Harvey (Graywolf)
SLEEPING AND WAKING by Michael O'Brien (Flood)
THE BALLAD OF JAMIE ALLAN by Tom Pickard, (Flood)
NEW POEMS by Tadeusz Rozewicz (Archipelago)

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2006 National Book Critics Circle Awards

The winners of the National Book Critics Circle Awards were announced at a ceremony held in New York City on March 8th, 2007. Established by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC), the Awards honor excellence in books and reviews published in English within the past year.

The winners of the 2006 NBCC Awards are:

FICTION:
THE INHERITANCE OF LOSS by Kiran Desai (Grove/Atlantic)

NONFICTION:
ROUGH CROSSINGS: BRITAIN, THE SLAVES AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION by Simon Schama (Ecco)

MEMOIR:
THE LOST: A SEARCH FOR SIX OF SIX MILLION by Daniel Mendelsohn (HarperCollins)

POETRY:
TOM THOMSON IN PURGATORY by Troy Jollimore (Margie/Intuit House)

CRITICISM:
EVERYTHING THAT RISES: A BOOK OF CONVERGENCES by Lawrence Wechsler (McSweeney's)

BIOGRAPHY:
JAMES TIPTREE, JR.: The Double Life of of Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phillips (St. Martin's)

THE NONA BALAKIAN CITATION FOR EXCELLENCE IN REVIEWING AWARD:
Steven G. Kellman

IVAN SANDROF LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD:
John Leonard

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2006 National Book Cricitics Circle Award Nominees

On January 20, 2007, the National Book Critics Circle announced the nominees of their annual Awards, which honor outstanding writing in books and reviews published in English. The winners in the following five categories of Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Biography/Memoir, and Criticism will be announced at the NBCC Annual Awards Ceremony on March 8, 2007. Past winners include Ian McEwan, Frank McCourt, Adrienne Rich, John Updike, and James Laughlin.

The nominees of the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Awards are:

FICTION:
HALF OF A YELLOW SUN by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Knopf)
THE INHERITANCE OF LOSS by Kiran Desai (Grove/Atlantic)
WHAT IS THE WHAT by Dave Eggers (McSweeney's)
THE LAY OF THE LAND by Richard Ford (Knopf)
THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy (Knopf)

NONFICTION:
THE OCCUPATION: WAR AND RESISTANCE IN IRAQ by Patrick Cockburn (Verso)
THE GIRLS WHO WENT AWAY: THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF WOMEN WHO SURRENDERED CHILDREN FOR ADOPTION IN THE DECADES BEFORE ROE S. WADE by Anne Fessler (Penguin Press)
THE OMNIVORE'S DILEMMA: A NATURAL HISTORY OF FOUR MEALS by Michael Pollan (Penguin Press)
ROUGH CROSSINGSL BRITAIN, THE SLAVES AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION by Simon Schama (Ecco)
THE LEMON TREE: AN ARAB, A JEW AND THE HEART OF THE MIDDLE EAST by Sandy Tolan (Bloomsbury)

MEMOIR:
THE AFTERLIFE by Donald Antrim (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
FUN HOME by Alison Bechdel (Houghton Mifflin)
STUART: A LIFE BACKWARDS by Alexander Masters (Delacorte)
THE LOST: A SEARCH FOR SIX OF SIX MILLION by Daniel Mendelsohn (HarperCollins)
STRANGE PIECE OF PARADISE by Teri Jentz (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

POETRY:
MY BROTHER IS GETTING ARRESTED AGAIN by Daisy Fried (University of Pittsburgh Press)
TOM THOMSON IN PURGATORY by Troy Jollimore (Margie/Intuit House)
POEMS (1945-1971) by Miltos Sachtouris (Archipelago Books
OOGA-BOOGA by Frederick Seidel (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
NOT FOR SPECIALISTS: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS by W. D. Snodgrass (BOA Editions)

CRITICISM:
WHILE EUROPE SLEPT: HOW RADICAL ISLAM IS DESTROYING THE WEST FROM WITHIN by Bruce Bawer (Doubleday)
FOLLIES OF THE WISE: DISSENTING ESSAYS by Frederick Crews (Shoemaker & Hoard)
BREAKING THE SPELL: RELIGION AS A NATURAL PHENOMENON by Daniel Dennett (Viking)
ON LOOKING: ESSAYS by Lia Purpura (Sarabande Books)
EVERYTHING THAT RISES: A BOOK OF CONVERGENCES by Lawrence Wechsler (McSweeney's)

BIOGRAPHY:
THE MOST FAMOUS MAN IN AMERICA: THE BIOGRAPHY OF HENRY WARD BEECHER by Debby Applegate: (Doubleday)
AT CANAAN'S EDGE: AMERICA IN THE KING YEARS, 1965-1968 by Taylor Branch (Simon & Schuster)
FLAUBERT: A BIOGRAPHY by Frederick Brown (Little Brown)
JAMES TIPTREE, JR.: The Double Life of of Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phillips (St. Martin's)
A SENSE OF THE WORLD: HOW A BLIND MAN BECAME HISTORY'S GREATEST TRAVELER by Jason Roberts (HarperCollins)

THE NONA BALAKIAN CITATION FOR EXCELLENCE IN REVIEWING AWARD:
Winner:
Steven G. Kellman

Finalists:
Ron Charles
Kathryn Harrison
Gideon Lewis-Kraus
Donna Rifkind

IVAN SANDROF LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD:
John Leonard

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2005 National Book Critics Circle Award Winners

On March 3, 2006, the 32nd Annual National Book Critics Circle awards were handed out at a ceremony held in New York City. Organized by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) --- the country's leading organization of book critics and book review editors --- the Award honors the finest books and reviews published in English within the past year.

This year's winners include:

FICTION:
THE MARCH by E. L. Doctorow (Random House)

GENERAL NONFICTION:
VOICES FROM CHERNOBYL: The Oral History of Nuclear Disaster, by Svetlana Alexievich, translated by Keith Gessen (Dalkey Archive Press/Picador)

BIOGRAPHY:
AMERICAN PROMETHEUS: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin (Knopf)

AUTOBIOGRAPHY:
THEM: A Memoir of Parents, by Francine du Plessix Gray (Penguin Press)

POETRY:
REFUSING HEAVEN by Jack Gilbert (Knopf)

CRITICISM:
THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY: Poetry in the Age of Tin, by William Logan (Columbia University Press)

NONA BALAKIAN CITATION FOR EXCELLENCE IN REVIEWING:
Wyatt Mason

IVAN SANDROF LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD:
Bill Henderson

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2004 National Book Critics Circle Award Winners

The winners of the National Book Critics Circle awards for the publishing year 2004 have been announced.

FICTION:
Marilynne Robinson, GILEAD (Farrar Straus & Giroux)

GENERAL NONFICTION:
Diarmaid McCulloch, THE REFORMATION: A History (Viking)

BIOGRAPHY/AUTOBIOGRAPHY:
Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan, DE KOONING: An American Master (Knopf)

POETRY:
Adrienne Rich, THE SCHOOL AMONG THE RUINS (W.W. Norton)

CRITICISM:
Patrick Neate, WHERE YOU'RE AT: Notes from the Frontline of a Hip-Hop World (Riverhead)

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2004 National Book Critics Circle Award Finalists

The nominees for the National Book Critics Circle awards for the publishing year 2004 in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, biography/autobiography, poetry, and criticism have been selected. The winners will be announced at a ceremony on March 18th at the New School in New York City.

The National Book Critics Circle is a not-for-profit organization of book editors and critics with some 600 members nationwide. The organization was founded in 1974 to encourage and raise the quality of book criticism in all media and to create a way for critics to communicate with one another about their professional concerns.

Here is the complete list of nominees:

FICTION

Edwidge Danticat, THE DEW BREAKER (Knopf)
Alan Hollinghurst, THE LINE OF BEAUTY (Bloomsbury)
David Mitchell, CLOUD ATLAS (Random House)
Marilynne Robinson, GILEAD (Farrar Straus & Giroux)
Philip Roth, THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA (Houghton Mifflin)


GENERAL NONFICTION

Kevin Boyle, ARC OF JUSTICE: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age (Henry Holt)
Edward Conlon, BLUE BLOOD (Riverhead)
Diarmaid McCulloch, THE REFORMATION: A History (Viking)
David Shipler, THE WORKING POOR: Invisible in America (Knopf)
Timothy B. Tyson, BLOOD DONE SIGN MY NAME: A True Story (Crown)


BIOGRAPHY/AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Ron Chernow, ALEXANDER HAMILTON (Penguin Press)
Bob Dylan, CHRONICLES, VOL. 1 (Simon & Schuster)
Stephen Greenblatt, WILL IN THE WORLD: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare (W.W. Norton)
John Guy, QUEEN OF SCOTS: The True Life of Mary Stuart (Houghton Mifflin)
Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan, DE KOONING: An American Master (Knopf)


POETRY

Brigit Pegeen Kelly, THE ORCHARD (BOA Editions)
D.A. Powell, COCKTAILS (Graywolf)
Adrienne Rich, THE SCHOOL AMONG THE RUINS (W.W. Norton)
James Richardson, INTERGLACIAL (Ausable Press)
Gary Snyder, DANGER ON PEAKS (Shoemaker & Hoard)


CRITICISM

Richard Howard, PAPER TRAIL: Selected Prose 1965-2003 (Farrar Straus & Giroux)
Patrick Neate, WHERE YOU'RE AT: Notes from the Frontline of a Hip-Hop World (Riverhead)
Graham Robb, STRANGERS: Homosexual Love in the 19th Century (W.W. Norton)
Craig Seligman, SONTAG & KAEL: Opposites Attract Me (Counterpoint)
James Wood, THE IRRESPONSIBLE SELF: On Laughter and the Novel (Farrar Straus & Giroux)

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2003 National Book Critics Circle Award Winners

The winners of the National Book Critics Circle awards for the publishing year 2003 have been announced.

FICTION:
Edward P. Jones, THE KNOWN WORLD (Amistad)

GENERAL NONFICTION:
Paul Hendrickson, SONS OF MISSISSIPPI (Knopf)

BIOGRAPHY/AUTOBIOGRAPHY:
William Taubman, KHRUSHCHEV: The Man and His Era (W.W. Norton)

POETRY:
Susan Stewart, COLUMBARIUM (University of Chicago Press)

CRITICISM:
Rebecca Solnit, RIVER OF SHADOWS: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West (Viking)

IVAN SANDROF LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD:
Studs Terkel

NONA BALAKIAN CITATION FOR EXCELLENCE IN REVIEWING:
Scott McLemee

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The nominees for the National Book Critics Circle awards for the publishing year 2003 in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, biography/autobiography, poetry, and criticism have been selected.

Here is the complete list of nominees:

FICTION

Monica Ali, BRICK LANE (Scribner)
Edward P. Jones, THE KNOWN WORLD (Amistad)
Caryl Phillips, A DISTANT SHORE (Knopf)
Richard Powers, THE TIME OF OUR SINGING (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Tobias Wolff, OLD SCHOOL (Knopf)


GENERAL NONFICTION

Caroline Alexander, THE BOUNTY: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty (Viking)
Anne Applebaum, GULAG (Doubleday)
Paul Hendrickson, SONS OF MISSISSIPPI
Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, RANDOM FAMILY: Love, Drugs, Trouble and Coming of Age in the Bronx (Scribner)
William T. Vollmann, RISING UP AND RISING DOWN (McSweeney's)


BIOGRAPHY/AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Blake Bailey, A TRAGIC HONESTY: The Life and Work of Richard Yates (Picador)
Paul Elie, THE LIFE YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN: An American Pilgrimage (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
George Marsden, JONATHAN EDWARDS (Yale University Press)
Carol Loeb Shloss, LUCIA JOYCE: To Dance in the Wake (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
William Taubman, KHRUSHCHEV: The Man and His Era (W.W. Norton)


POETRY

Carolyn Forche, BLUE HOUR (HarperCollins)
Tony Hoagland, WHAT NARCISSISM MEANS TO ME (Graywolf)
Venus Khoury-Ghata, SHE SAYS (Graywolf)
Susan Stewart, COLUMBARIUM (University of Chicago Press)
Mary Szybist, GRANTED (Alice James Books)


CRITICISM

Dagoberto Gilb, GRITOS (Grove)
Nick Hornby, SONGBOOK (McSweeney's)
Ross King, MICHELANGELO & THE POPE'S CEILING (Walker)
Rebecca Solnit, RIVER OF SHADOWS: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West (Viking)
Susan Sontag, REGARDING THE PAIN OF OTHERS (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

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2002 National Book Critics Circle Award Winners

The winners of the National Book Critics Circle awards for the publishing year 2002 have been announced.

FICTION:
Ian McEwan, ATONEMENT (Doubleday/Nan A. Talese)

GENERAL NONFICTION:
Samantha Power, A PROBLEM FROM HELL: AMERICA AND THE AGE OF GENOCIDE (Basic Books)

BIOGRAPHY/AUTOBIOGRAPHY:
Janet Browne, CHARLES DARWIN: The Power of Place, Vol. II (Knopf)

POETRY:
B.H. Fairchild, EARLY OCCULT MEMORY SYSTEMS OF THE LOWER MIDWEST (W.W. Norton)

CRITICISM:
William H. Gass, TESTS OF TIME (Knopf)

IVAN SANDROF LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD:
Richard Howard

NONA BALAKIAN CITATION FOR EXCELLENCE IN REVIEWING:
Maureen N. McLane

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The nominees for this year's National Book Critics Circle Awards have been announced. The awards for the best book published in five categories -- fiction, nonfiction, biography/ autobiography, poetry, and criticism -- will be presented at a ceremony on February 26 at the New School in New York City. The winners will be chosen by the 22-member National Book Critics Circle board.

Here is the complete list of nominees:

FICTION

Jeffrey Eugenides, MIDDLESEX (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Aleksandar Hemon, NOWHERE MAN (Doubleday/Nan A. Talese)
William Kennedy, ROSCOE (Viking)
Ian McEwan, ATONEMENT (Doubleday/Nan A. Talese)
Edith Templeton, THE DARTS OF CUPID AND OTHER STORIES (Pantheon)


GENERAL NONFICTION

Chris Hedges, WAR IS A FORCE THAT GIVES US MEANING (PublicAffairs)
William Langewiesche, AMERICAN GROUND: UNBUILDING THE WORLD TRADE CENTER (FSG/North Point Press)
Samantha Power, A PROBLEM FROM HELL: AMERICA AND THE AGE OF GENOCIDE (Basic Books)
Richard Rodriguez, BROWN: The Last Discovery of America (Viking)
Gaby Wood, EDISON'S EVE: A Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life (Knopf)


BIOGRAPHY/AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Janet Browne, CHARLES DARWIN: The Power of Place, Vol. II (Knopf)
Robert A. Caro, MASTER OF THE SENATE: The Years of Lyndon Johnson (Knopf)
Elizabeth Gilbert, THE LAST AMERICAN MAN (Viking)
Edmund S. Morgan, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (Yale University Press)
Mark Zwonitzer with Charles Hirshberg, WILL YOU MISS ME WHEN I'M GONE? The Carter Family and Their Legacy in American Music (Simon & Schuster)


POETRY

Major Jackson, LEAVING SATURN (University of Georgia Press)
B.H. Fairchild, EARLY OCCULT MEMORY SYSTEMS OF THE LOWER MIDWEST (W.W. Norton)
Harryette Mullen, SLEEPING WITH THE DICTIONARY (University of California Press)
Sharon Olds, THE UNSWEPT ROOM (Knopf)
Adam Zagajewski, WITHOUT END: New and Selected Poems (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)


CRITICISM

Philip Ball, BRIGHT EARTH: Art and the Invention of Color (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Julia Blackburn, OLD MAN GOYA (Pantheon)
William H. Gass, TESTS OF TIME (Knopf)
Christopher Ricks, REVIEWERY (Other Press/Handsel Books)
Charles Rosen, PIANO NOTES: The World of the Pianist (Free Press)

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