Comment: National Book Awards

The National Book Award winners were announced last night.

Hooray for ECHO MAKER!

This Fox News article has quotations from Richard Powers' acceptance speech.

The NY Times focuses on the nonfiction winner, Timothy Egan, author of highly acclaimed dust bowl history THE WORST HARD TIME.

The NY Sun talks about the ceremony, with Fran Liebowitz, Adrienne Rich, and David Remnick waxing eloquent.

GalleyCat was there, starstruck as I imagine I would be, and mentions the reading segment (with Gene Yang's AMERICAN BORN CHINESE and Danielewski's ONLY REVOLUTIONS projected overhead to help audiences follow their reading) and Nicole Kraus's remarks. LBC member

Sarah Weinman was in attendance too, and has a similar reaction to Richard Powers' win, along with some choice remarks about attendees.

And I missed hearing it on NPR this morning, but the ALP tells me that YA winner M.T. Anderson's remarks contained a declaration of respect for Gene Yang's work and pride that his category was the first one to include graphic novels. (I'm all the more interested in reading Anderson's ASTONISHING LIFE OF OCTAVIAN NOTHING.)

Actually, it seems like a really good year for the NBA. Apparently there's been the requisite complaining about the nomination of unknowns when there were so many big name authors releasing books this year (though you won't find me taking issue with the passing over of John Updike and Phillip Roth's contributions). With the exception of perhaps Taylor Branch's ambitious biography of MLK, it seems as though everyone who ought to have won, did win. It seems to me truly a representation of the best books coming out of America this year. I'm looking forward to reading those I haven't, and triumphantly displaying and selling the winners for customers who actually have some good options to choose from.


(Oh, and I'm sorry about no posting yesterday -- I've got some good books to review, but it was totally mandatory to finish a certain freelance project, and thankfully I got it done. I'll be back with the reviews ASAP.)

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