Also so see my coverage of the The 64th National Book Awards 2013 which is presented by the National Book Foundation

 

 

FICTION 

 

• Rabih Alameddine, An Unnecessary Woman (Grove Press/ Grove/Atlantic)
• Molly Antopol, The UnAmericans (W. W. Norton & Company)
• John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See (Scribner/ Simon & Schuster)
• Phil Klay, Redeployment (The Penguin Press/ Penguin Group (USA))
• Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven (Alfred A. Knopf/ Random House)
• Elizabeth McCracken, Thunderstruck & Other Stories (The Dial Press/ Random House)
• Richard Powers, Orfeo (W.W. Norton & Company)
• Marilynne Robinson, Lila (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Jane Smiley, Some Luck (Alfred A. Knopf/ Random House)

 

NONFICTION 

• Roz Chast, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? (Bloomsbury)
• John Demos, The Heathen School: A Story of Hope and Betrayal in the Age of the Early Republic (Alfred A. Knopf/ Random House)
• Anand Gopal, No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes (Metropolitan Books/ Henry Holt and Company)
• Nigel Hamilton, The Mantle of Command: FDR at War, 1941 - 1942 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• Walter Isaacson, The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution (Simon & Schuster)
• John Lahr, Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh (W.W. Norton & Company)
• Evan Osnos, Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Ronald C. Rosbottom, When Paris Went Dark: The City of Light Under German Occupation, 1940-1944 (Little, Brown and Company/ Hachette Book Group)
• Matthew Stewart, Nature's God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic (W.W. Norton & Company)
• Edward O. Wilson, The Meaning of Human Existence (Liveright Publishing Corporation/ W.W. Norton & Company)

 

POETRY 

• Linda Bierds, Roget's Illusion (G. P. Putnam's Sons/ Penguin Group (USA))
• Brian Blanchfield, A Several World (Nightboat Books)
• Louise Glück, Faithful and Virtuous Night (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Edward Hirsch, Gabriel: A Poem (Alfred A. Knopf/ Random House)
• Fanny Howe, Second Childhood (Graywolf Press)
• Maureen N. McLane, This Blue (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Fred Moten, The Feel Trio (Letter Machine Editions)
• Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric (Graywolf Press)
• Spencer Reece, The Road to Emmaus(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Mark Strand, Collected Poems (Alfred A. Knopf/ Random House)

 

 

 

YOUNG PEOPLE’S LITERATURE

 

• Laurie Halse Anderson, The Impossible Knife of Memory (Viking/ Penguin Group (USA))
• Gail Giles, Girls Like Us (Candlewick Press)
• Carl Hiaasen, Skink—No Surrender (Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers/ Random House)
• Kate Milford, Greenglass House (Clarion Books/ Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• Eliot Schrefer, Threatened (Scholastic Press)
• Steve Sheinkin, The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights (Roaring Brook Press/ Macmillan Publishers)
• Andrew Smith, 100 Sideways Miles (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers/ Simon & Schuster)
• John Corey Whaley, Noggin (Atheneum Books for Young Readers/ Simon & Schuster)
• Deborah Wiles, Revolution: The Sixties Trilogy, Book Two (Scholastic Press)
• Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming (Nancy Paulsen Books/ Penguin Group (USA))

The National Book Foundation has whittled the list down to the finalists shown below:

 

 

• Rabih Alameddine, An Unnecessary Woman (Grove Press/ Grove/Atlantic)
• Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See (Scribner/ Simon & Schuster)
• Phil Klay, Redeployment (The Penguin Press/ Penguin Group (USA))
• Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven (Alfred A. Knopf/ Random House)
• Marilynne Robinson, Lila (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

 

 

• Roz Chast, Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? (Bloomsbury)
• Anand Gopal, No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes (Metropolitan Books/ Henry Holt and Company)
• John Lahr, Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh (W.W. Norton & Company)
• Evan Osnos, Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Edward O. Wilson, The Meaning of Human Existence (Liveright Publishing Corporation/ W.W. Norton & Company)

 

 

• Louise Glück, Faithful and Virtuous Night (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Fanny Howe, Second Childhood (Graywolf Press)
• Maureen N. McLane, This Blue (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Fred Moten, The Feel Trio (Letter Machine Editions)
• Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric (Graywolf Press)

 

 

• Eliot Schrefer, Threatened (Scholastic Press)
• Steve Sheinkin, The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights (Roaring Brook Press/ Macmillan Publishers)
• John Corey Whaley, Noggin (Atheneum Books for Young Readers/ Simon & Schuster)
• Deborah Wiles, Revolution: The Sixties Trilogy, Book Two (Scholastic Press)
• Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming (Nancy Paulsen Books/ Penguin Group (USA))

 

Read more about the National Book Awards

Here is a list of the last 35 Black National Book Award nominees and winners.  

 

Invisible Man was the first Black Book to win back in 1953

Here is Jacqueline Woodson's acceptance speech for winning the award.

 

 

The night's MC was vilified in social media for racists remarks here is my take on what was said.  Perhaps needless to say, my take differs greatly from what was written on social media, mostly by people who ever not even there.