National Book Award Finalists

This year, 271 works of fiction were submitted to the National Book Foundation to be considered for the National Book Award. The five finalists for this award were announced October 15. Look for the winner to be announced November 19 at the NBA annual ceremony and dinner.

Here are the finalists for fiction for 2008:

The Lazarus Prject by Aleksandar Hemon
A first full-length work by the MacArthur Award-winning author of the story collections The Question of Bruno and Nowhere Man finds the murder of Jewish immigrant Lazarus Averbuch triggering ethnic and political tensions in early twentieth-century Chicago, an event that is investigated a century later by a young writer from Eastern Europe.
Telex from Cuba by Rachel Kushner
Coming of age in mid-1950s Cuba where the local sugar and nickel production are controlled by American interests, Everly Lederer and KC Stites observe the indulgences and betrayals of the adult world and are swept up by the political underground and the revolt led by Fidel and Raul Castro.
Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen
A richly textured reworking of the author's classic trilogy--Killing Mister Watson, Lost Man's River, and Bone by Bone--chronicles the legacy of E. J. Watson, a notorious desperado gunned down by his neighbors along the lawless nineteenth-century frontier of the Florida Everglades.
Home by Marilynne Robinson
Returning to Gilead to care for her dying father, Glory Boughton, the daughter of John Ames's closest friend, is joined by her long-absent brother, with whom she bonds throughout his struggles with alcoholism, unemployment, and their father's traditionalist values. Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize for her previous novel, Gilead.
The End by Salvatore Scibona
Six attendees at an Ohio carnival in 1953 find their lives irrevocably changed by a devastating crime, in a tale that centers on a man whose years of unrelenting labor, paternal devotion, and steadfast faith are shattered by the news that his son has died in a Korean POW camp. A first novel.

A couple of upcoming fiction titles

Looking for something good to read in the next few weeks? Don't want to sit on a request list for the next month or so waiting for The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society? Would you be embarrassed to read something with such a strange title anyway? Of course, there's always Salmonella Men on Planet Porno - nobody's waiting for that one.

Well, here are a couple of alternatives -- upcoming or recently published fiction with normal titles that have been well-received in pre-publication review sources.


A Country Called Home
Author: Barnes, Kim Publisher: Random $ 23.95 ISBN: 9780307268952 Date: 9/30/2008

A novel of youthful idealism, of faith and madness, of love and family.

Fault Lines
Author: Huston, Nancy Publisher: PGW $ 14 ISBN: 9780802170514 Date: 10/1/2008

A profound and poetic story that traces four generations of a single family from present-day California to World War II-era Germany.

Serena
Author: Rash, Ron Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780061470851 Date: 10/7/ 2008

A tale of greed, corruption, and revenge set against the backdrop of the 1930s wilderness and America's burgeoning environmental movement.

The Wasted Vigil
Author: Aslam, Nadeem Publisher: Random $ 25 ISBN: 9780307268426 Date: 9/9/2008

A novel about war in modern times, told through the lives of five people who come together in post-9/11 Afghanistan.

The Black Tower
Author: Bayard, Louis Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780061173509 Date: 8/26/2008

A spellbinding historical mystery about a real-life convict who transformed himself into the world's first modern detective.