We love literary awards here at For Reading Addicts and they always offer great inspiration for the TBR. The 2016 National Book Awards is now down to 20 books, that’s five finalists in each of the categories of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and young people’s literature.
This year’s shortlist is a good mix of established authors and poets and newcomers to the scene. The winners will be announced in New York on November 16th and each winner will receive a medal, a statue, and $10,000.
Already announced is the Lifetime achievement award, given to Robert A. Caro for distinguished contribution to American Letters. Here are the remaining finalists with emphasis on that big fiction award.
Fiction:

Chris Bachelder – The Throwback Special
The Throwback Special is a moving and comic tale filled with pitch-perfect observations about manhood, marriage, middle age, and the rituals we all enact as part of being alive.
Paulette Jiles – News of the World
News of the World is a historical tale set in Texas in 1870, richly written the novel explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, and trust.


Karan Mahajan – The Association of Small Bombs
The Association of Small Bombs is a contemporary tale of the biggest fear of many of us, and the affect on terrorism on both victims and perpetrators.
The Association of Small Bombs US
The Association of Small Bombs UK
Colson Whitehead – The Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad is salvation to many, including Cara, a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. This is a powerful historical novel, recreating the horrors of the pre-Civil War era.


Jacqueline Woodson – Another Brooklyn
In Another Brooklyn a chance meeting with an old friend catapults August back to the 1970s when friendship meant everything, until it meant nothing.
Non-Fiction
Arlie Russell Hochschild – Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right
Ibram X. Kendi – Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Viet Thanh Nguyen – Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War
Andrés Reséndez – The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America
Heather Ann Thompson – Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy
Poetry
Daniel Borzutzky – The Performance of Becoming Human
Rita Dove – Collected Poems 1974 – 2004
Peter Gizzi – Archeophonics
Jay Hopler – The Abridged History of Rainfall
Solmaz Sharif – Look
Young People’s Literature
Kate DiCamillo – Raymie Nightingale
John Lewis, Andrew Aydin & Nate Powell – March: Book Three
Grace Lin – When the Sea Turned to Silver
Jason Reynolds – Ghost
Nicola Yoon – The Sun Is Also a Star

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