2012 National Book Award Finalists

by Junot Díaz

Not as ambitious as Díaz’s Pulitzer Prize winner, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007), but sharply observed and... Full review >

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by Dave Eggers

Even so, Eggers’ fiction has evolved in the past decade. This book is firm proof that social concerns can make for resonant... Full review >

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by Louise Erdrich

This second novel in a planned trilogy lacks the breadth and richness of Erdrich at her best, but middling Erdrich is still... Full review >

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by Ben Fountain

War is hell in this novel of inspired absurdity. Full review >

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by Kevin Powers

Powers writes with a rawness that brings the sights and smells as well as the trauma and decay of war home to the reader. Full review >

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by Anne Applebaum

A dark but hopeful chronicle that shows how even humanity’s worst can fracture and fall. Full review >

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by Katherine Boo

The best book yet written on India in the throes of a brutal transition. Full review >

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by Robert A. Caro

Before beginning the Johnson biography, Caro published a life of Robert Moses, The Power Broker(1974), a book many scholars... Full review >

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by Domingo Martinez

A finely detailed, sentimental family scrapbook inscribed with love. Full review >

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by Anthony Shadid

A complicated, elegiac, beautiful attempt to reconcile the physical bayt (home) and the spiritual. Full review >

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by William Alexander

The result is wryly humorous and bearably yet excitingly menacing: Even while much is left unexplained, Rownie’s triumph is... Full review >

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by Carrie Arcos

The final pages offer a hopeful conclusion to Rachel’s even bigger search—for herself. Full review >

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by Patricia McCormick

Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers... Full review >

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by Eliot Schrefer

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by Steve Sheinkin

A superb tale of an era and an effort that forever changed our world. Full review >

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