2009 National Book Award winner for fiction
The National Book Award winners have been announced, Philip Roth is on a (less than desirable) award shortlist, and Lauren Conrad continues to branch out into book publishing. Details below…
- The 2009 National Book Award winners were announced Wednesday night at a swanky ceremony at Cipriani’s in NYC. Kind of like the best picture category at the Oscars, the fiction award was saved for last and presented to Colum McCann for Let the Great World Spin. McCann was the favorite for this category, but the other winners were slightly less predictable: T.J. Stiles’ The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt won in nonfiction, Keith Waldrop’s Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy won in poetry, and Phillip Hoose’s Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice took home the award for young people’s literature. Also, Flannery O’Connor’s The Complete Stories won the vote for Best of the National Book Awards. Jacket Copy comments on the ceremony and the winners, and Critical Mass gives a play-by-play of the evening’s events.
- Normally it’s no surprise to see Philip Roth’s name on an award shortlist, but the Literary Review’s bad sex in fiction award is a different story. Roth has been nominated for this dubious award because of a sex scene in The Humbling that is far from humble. According to the Literary Review, the purpose of the award is to “draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it.” Fortunately for Roth, he’s not the only literary author on the list, which includes Booker winner John Banville and Israeli novelist Amos Oz. The Guardian has more on the award and Roth’s qualifying passage.
- HarperCollins announced yesterday that Lauren Conrad (of The Hills fame) will add a nonfiction book about style to her publishing resume. Currently, she has published the YA novel L.A. Candy with HarperCollins as part of a 3-book series, and this will be her first nonfiction attempt. Shelf Life comments on the announcement and Conrad’s current stint on the bestseller list.
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