2008 National Book Award Nominees Announced

October 16, 3:47 PMSeattle Books ExaminerDanielle Dreger-Babbitt

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From the National Book Award Website

The nominees for the National Book Award were announced on Wednesday.   in Chicago.  This year 200 publishers submitted 1,258 titles to be considered for the National Book Award. 

The breakdown by genre:

Nonfiction: 540

Fiction: 271

Poetry: 175

Young People's Literature: 274

This year the subject of war (both Civil and the war on terror) holds court in the nonfiction category.  Nominees include "Final Salute: a Story of Unfinished Lives" by Jim Sheeler, "The Darkside: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals" by Jane Mayer, and "This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War" by Drew Gilpin Faust.  "Hemingses of Monticello: an American Family," the biography  about Thomas Jefferson's slaves, by Annette Gordon-Reed and the memoir "The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order" by Joan Wickersham were also nominated.

The five fiction nominees include Aleksander Hemon's "The Lazarus Project," Rachel Kushner's "Telex From Cuba," Peter Matthiessen's "Shadow Country,"  Marilynne Robinson's "Home," and Salvatore Scibona's "The End."  The poetry nominees are Frank Bidart's "Watching the Spring Festival," Mark Doty's "Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems," Richard Howard's "Without Saying," Patricia Smith's "Blood Dazzler," and "Creatures of a Day" by Reginald Gibbons.

Perhaps what I am most excited for are the nominees for Young People's Literature.  This year, nearly twenty additional titles were submitted for consideration over last year's record of 256.  Usually the books nominated for the National Book Award in this catagory are spot on  You might remember last year's winner, a little title called "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" by Sherman Alexie.  Past winner's include Gloria Whelan's "Homeless Bird" (2000) and M.T. Anderson's "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party" (2006).  This year the nominees are Laurie Halse Anderson's "Chains," Kathi Appelt's "Underneath," Judy Blundell's "What I Saw and How I Lied," E. Lockhart's "The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks," and Tim Tharp's "The Spectacular Now."  I'll be honest- I've only read Lockhart's book out of all the ones nominated and I loved it.  I think it should win the award for Young People's Literature not just because it has a super long and fantastic title, but also because our heroine Frankie is so fierce and likable and that she makes a great role model for teenage girls.  I suppose that I have a lot of catching up to do with all the nominated titles in Young People's Literature so that my opinion is a little less biased.  Fortunately the National Book Awards won't be announced until November 19th in New York  so we all have a little time to read a few nominees before we find out who the big winners will be.

When the winners are announced in November they will walk away with a bronze sculpture, $10,000 in pocket change, and hopefully a bestseller.