General

Find a Good Book for the New Year

If you are looking for a few good books to read in the coming year, check out of of the finalists or winners of the 2011 National Book Awards. Find out more about these authors and their works in Literary Reference Center and NoveList, or you can find one of these in a library near you.


Fiction
WINNER: Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones

    FINALISTS
  • Andrew Krivak, The Sojourn
  • Téa Obreht, The Tiger’s Wife
  • Julie Otsuka, The Buddha in the Attic
  • Edith Pearlman, Binocular Vision


Nonfiction
WINNER: Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

    FINALISTS
  • Deborah Baker, The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism
  • Mary Gabriel, Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution
  • Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention
  • Lauren Redniss, Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout


Poetry
WINNER: Nikky Finney, Head Off & Split

    FINALISTS
  • Yusef Komunyakaa, The Chameleon Couch
  • Carl Phillips, Double Shadow
  • Adrienne Rich, Tonight No Poetry Will Serve: Poems 2007-2010
  • Bruce Smith, Devotions


Young People’s Literature
WINNER: Thanhha Lai, Inside Out & Back Again

    FINALISTS
  • Franny Billingsley, Chime
  • Debby Dahl Edwardson, My Name Is Not Easy
  • Albert Marrin, Flesh & Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and Its Legacy
  • Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now