national book award nominees
October is like Oscar season for book people. First, the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded last week, and then we found out yesterday that a debut novelist beat out tons of literary establishment stalwarts to win the Man Booker Prize. Today, the 2008 National Book Awards nominations were announced (see here for a full list of nominees), and I was happy to see that a couple of Nonfiction contenders are available in audiobook form on eMusic. No, these nominees most likely won’t be featured in People Magazine’s best (or worst) dressed lists, but they’re worth checking out nonetheless!
The Dark Side by Jane Mayer: Just when you thought you knew everything there was to know about the US government’s handling of the “war on terror” following 9/11, New Yorker reporter Mayer uncovers new evidence of mistreatment and abuse. In The Dark Side Mayer asks a troubling question: Just how far can the US stretch its interpretation of the Constitution while still maintaining its moral character and its standing in the world?
Final Salute by Jim Sheeler: Sad, sad book. The author spent two years following a marine as he went about his duties of notifying the families of soldiers who were killed in Iraq. This is not quite an easy listen for your morning commute, but I can’t think of a more important, worthwhile book. Just make sure you have a hanky on hand.
Oh! A note on the Fiction nominees. Yancey has just finished reading my copy of Aleksandar Hemon’s The Lazarus Project, and in the middle of an editorial team meeting he was moved to read aloud from a section of the book (it was a Ukrainian joke, in fact). That’s gotta be a ringing endorsement, right?
I did enjoy The Lazarus Project, but not immensely. I was disappointed in the nominees — the few books that I have read I wasn’t wild about, and most of my favorites didn’t make the cut. (I will have to remember what those were now!)
Ok books that would make my list:
NONFICTION
Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America
The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America
The Forever War
One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War
FICTION
Netherland
Lush Life
MAYBE
Atmospheric Disturbances
There must be more fiction. I’m blanking on some big things here. Although in terms of fiction this year I’ve been reading much more old stuff.
Yancey, I’m so there with you on Lush Life. But I’d probably move Netherland into the MAYBE category, along with Atmospheric Disturbances. Also on the MAYBE list for me would be Goldengrove by Francine Prose.
In terms of Nonfiction, the one that really stands out for me is a memoir: An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken. McCracken is one of my favorite writers ever–she can take the most devastating topic (in this case, the death of her baby) and make it feel so beautiful, so honest, so astute, that you have no choice but to be drawn in.