National Book Awards 2015

The National Book Awards finalists have been announced, and one of the books on the list is The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery, which I raved about to anyone who would listen after I read it! Check out the complete article on NPR.

"Winners in each category will receive a bronze sculpture and a purse of $10,000, at a ceremony in New York City on Nov. 18."

National Book Awards Finalists 

 

Fiction

Karen E. Bender, Refund
Angela Flournoy, The Turner House
Lauren Groff, Fates and Furies
Adam Johnson, Fortune Smiles
Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

Nonfiction
Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me
Sally Mann, Hold Still
Sy Montgomery, The Soul of an Octopus
Carla Power, If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the QuranTracy K. Smith, Ordinary Light

Poetry
Ross Gay, Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude
Terrance Hayes, How to Be Drawn
Robin Coste Lewis, Voyage of the Sable Venus
Ada Limón, Bright Dead Things
Patrick Phillips, Elegy for a Broken Machine

Young People's Literature
Ali Benjamin, The Thing About Jellyfish
Laura Ruby, Bone Gap
Steve Sheinkin, Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War
Neal Shusterman, Challenger Deep
Noelle Stevenson, Nimona

National Book Award Winners Announced

The 62nd National Book Awards were held last night, and here are the winners:

Young People's Literature

Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai

No one would believe me but at times I would choose wartime in Saigon over peacetime in Alabama. 

For all the ten years of her life, HÀ has only known Saigon: the thrills of its markets, the joy of its traditions, the warmth of her friends close by . . . and the beauty of her very own papaya tree. 

But now the Vietnam War has reached her home. HÀ and her family are forced to flee as Saigon falls, and they board a ship headed toward hope. In America, HÀ discovers the foreign world of Alabama: the coldness of its strangers, the dullness of its food, the strange shape of its landscape . . . and the strength of her very own family.
This is the moving story of one girl's year of change, dreams, grief, and healing as she journeys from one country to another, one life to the next. 


Nonfiction

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt

One of the world's most celebrated scholars, Stephen Greenblatt has crafted both an innovative work of history and a thrilling story of discovery, in which one manuscript, plucked from a thousand years of neglect, changed the course of human thought and made possible the world as we know it.

Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late thirties took a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. That book was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic, On the Nature of Things, by Lucretius—a beautiful poem of the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles in eternal motion, colliding and swerving in new directions. 

The copying and translation of this ancient book-the greatest discovery of the greatest book-hunter of his age-fueled the Renaissance, inspiring artists such as Botticelli and thinkers such as Giordano Bruno; shaped the thought of Galileo and Freud, Darwin and Einstein; and had a revolutionary influence on writers such as Montaigne and Shakespeare and even Thomas Jefferson.


Fiction

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. A hard drinker, largely absent, he doesn't show concern for much else. Esch and her three brothers are stocking food, but there isn't much to save. Lately, Esch can't keep down what food she gets; she's fourteen and pregnant. Her brother Skeetah is sneaking scraps for his prized pitbull's new litter, dying one by one in the dirt. Meanwhile, brothers Randall and Junior try to stake their claim in a family long on child's play and short on parenting.

As the twelve days that make up the novel's framework yield to their dramatic conclusion, this unforgettable family-motherless children sacrificing for one another as they can, protecting and nurturing where love is scarce-pulls itself up to face another day. A big-hearted novel about familial love and community against all odds, and a wrenching look at the lonesome, brutal, and restrictive realities of rural poverty, Salvage the Bones is muscled with poetry, revelatory, and real.


Poetry

Head Off and Split by Nikky Finney

The poems in Nikky Finney's breathtaking new collection Head Off & Split sustain a sensitive and intense dialogue with emblematic figures and events in African American life: from civil rights matriarch Rosa Parks to former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, from a brazen girl strung out on lightning to a terrified woman abandoned on a rooftop during Hurricane Katrina. Finney s poetic voice is defined by an intimacy that holds a soft yet exacting eye on the erotic, on uncanny political and family events, like her mother s wedding waltz with South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond, and then again on the heartbreaking hilarity of an American president s final State of the Union address.Artful and intense, Finney's poems ask us to be mindful of what we fraction, fragment, cut off, dice, dishonor, or throw away, powerfully evoking both the lawless and the sublime.

Check out the article by Publisher's Weekly.

Man Booker 2011 Longlist

The Man Booker Prize 2011 longlist has been released, and I got to add a few more books to my Wish List (my new additions in bold):

Julian Barnes "The Sense of an Ending" (coming Aug. 2)
Sebastian Barry "On Canaan’s Side" (coming Sept. 8)
Carol Birch "Jamrach’s Menagerie" (out now)
Patrick deWitt "The Sisters Brothers" (out now)
Esi Edugyan "Half Blood Blues" (no U.S. publication date available)
Yvvette Edwards "A Cupboard Full of Coats" (out now)
Alan Hollinghurst "The Stranger’s Child" (coming Oct. 11)
Stephen Kelman "Pigeon English" (out now)
Patrick McGuinness "The Last Hundred Days" (no U.S. publication date available)
A.D. Miller "Snowdrops" (out now)
Alison Pick "Far to Go" (out now)
Jane Rogers "The Testament of Jessie Lamb" (no U.S. publication date available)
D.J. Taylor "Derby Day" (no U.S. publication date available)

Check out the LA Times article here or The Man Booker Prizes website for more on this.

Thank You, Thank You, Thank you

I've been very bad. I was lucky enough to have a few awards handed on to me over the last couple of months, and have been taking way too long to accept them and pass them on. I'm just never very good at that sort of thing, as I admitted to awhile back on my other blog. Aditionally I am (like many bibliophiles, I would imagine) something of an introvert and mildly socially awkward. That just makes for a bad award recipient! But here we go...

First I would like to thank Wendy of Wendy's Minding Spot for bestowing the Humane Award on me. She says:

Eleni @ /-LA FEMME READERS-/ made this award & here is what she said about this special award:

"I made the Humane Award in order to honor certain bloggers that I feel are kindhearted individuals. They regularly take part in my blog and always leave the sweetest comments. If it wasn't for them, my site would just be an ordinary book review blog. Their blogs are also amazing and are tastefully done on a daily basis. I thank them and look forward to our growing friendships through the blog world."

So three of the blogs that fit this description the best (who often make such kind comments on my blog and make it something more than what it would be otherwise) are:

Rose City Reader
Jo-Jo Loves to Read
Little House in the Big Burbs

I also would like to pass it on to Maggie May of Flux Capicitor, not because of what she contributes to my blog, but for what she contributes to the world, and because she has possibly the kindest and most beautiful heart of anyone that I've "met" out on the worldwide web.

Next is an award that was actually passed on to me *gasp* over two months ago! The "One Lovely Blog Award" was passed on to me by Stacy of Stacy's Books. She says:

One Lovely Blog Award goes to new blogs and blogging friends.The rules are: Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who granted the award and his or her blog link. Pass the award to 5 other blogs that you’ve newly discovered.

So here are some "new to me" blogs that I would like to pass this on to:

Jamie's Rabbits
Staci of Life in the Thumb (I wasn't born in the thumb, but was born in the mitten.)
Book Soulmates
All About {n}

And last, but certainly not least, my thanks to Libby of Libby's Literary Library (and many other blogs) for the Heartfelt Award (love your new banner, Libby!) Here's what she said about this award:

Do you reach for a cup of cocoa or tea when your relaxing, seeking comfort, sharing a plate of cookies with family and friends? You know the feeling you get when you drink a yummy cup of cocoa, tea, or a hot toddy? That is what the Heartfelt Award is all about, feeling warm inside.

Rules:

• Put the logo on your blog/post.
  
• Nominate up to to 9 blogs which make you feel comfy or warm inside.
  
• Be sure to link your nominees withing your post.
  
• Let them know that they have been nominated by commenting on their blog.
  
• Remember to link to the person from whom you received your award.

So these are two blogs that make me feel like I'm visiting with my girlfriends:

The Pioneer Woman
Hope Studios

So thank you to all of those who honored me with these awards! I make no promises of getting any better in future about acknowledging awards and such. I'm just really bad at this stuff! I would never be nominated president of the PTA (even if I had kids)!