Acclaimed novelist Pat Conroy announced the finalists for the 2010 National Book Award winners on October 13. Among the nominees are many books to which Kirkus awarded starred reviews. Here's a list of all the 2010 finalists Kirkus reviewed.
Musician, poet and visual artist Smith (Trois, 2008, etc.) chronicles her intense life with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe during the 1960s and '70s, when both artists came of age in downtown New York.
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"Meticulous reporting reveals life in a country that tries hard to keep its citizens walled in and the rest of the world out."
A detailed, grim portrait of daily life under the repressive North Korean dictatorship, where schoolchildren are taught to sing anthems in praise of their leader asserting that they "have nothing to envy in this world.`
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