The National Book Critics Circle announced the finalists for its 2012 awards – 30 books (Reyna Grande's memoir is pictured at left) are finalists in the six categories in which the NBCC gives awards–autobiography, biography, criticism, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. One of the most prestigious American literary awards, the NBCCs are the only sole American awards bestowed by working critics and book review editors. Winners will be announced on Thursday, February 28, 2013, at 6p.m. at the New School’s Tishman Auditorium in New York. The list of finalists (and three critics receiving lifetime achievement awards from the NBCC) are below:
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Reyna Grande. The Distance Between Us
Maureen N. McLane. My Poets
Anthony Shadid. House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East
Leanne Shapton. Swimming Studies
Ngugi wa Thiong’o. In the House of the Interpreter
BIOGRAPHY
Robert A. Caro. The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson
Lisa Cohen. All We Know: Three Lives
Michael Gorra. Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece
Lisa Jarnot. Robert Duncan, The Ambassador from Venus: A Biography
Tom Reiss. The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo
CRITICISM
Paul Elie. Reinventing Bach
Daniel Mendelsohn. Waiting for the Barbarians: Essays from the Classics to Pop Culture
Mary Ruefle. Madness, Rack, and Honey
Marina Warner. Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights
Kevin Young. The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness
FICTION
Laurent Binet. HHhH. tr. by Sam Taylor
Ben Fountain. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
Adam Johnson. The Orphan Master’s Son
Lydia Millet. Magnificence
Zadie Smith. NW
NONFICTION
Katherine Boo. Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
Steve Coll. Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power
Jim Holt. Why Does the World Exist? An Existential Detective Story
David Quammen. Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic
Andrew Solomon. Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity
POETRY
David Ferry. Bewilderment: New Poems and Translations
Lucia Perillo. On the Spectrum of Possible Deaths
Allan Peterson. Fragile Acts
D. A. Powell. Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys
A. E. Stallings. Olives
Nona A. Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing: William Deresiewicz
Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award: Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar