National Book Award Nominees Named
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NEW YORK — Robert Caro’s biography of Lyndon B. Johnson, Charles Johnson’s tale of a freed slave’s journey and John Updike’s fourth and final “Rabbit” book are among nominees for the National Book Critics Circle Awards.
The awards are given in five categories--fiction, nonfiction, poetry, biography-autobiography and criticism--for books published last year by American writers.
The 25 finalists, announced Thursday, were chosen in a two-stage process by the National Book Critics general membership and its 24-member board of directors. Winners will be announced Feb. 16 in Claremont.
The nominees:
FICTION
* Johnson’s “Middle Passages,” which won the National Book Award in November.
* Updike’s “Rabbit at Rest.”
* Sue Miller’s “Family Pictures,” about a family with an autistic child.
* Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried.”
* Wallace Stegner’s “Collected Stories.”
NONFICTION
* Mike Davis’ “City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles.”
* Alma Guillermoprieto’s “Samba.”
* The late O. B. Hardison’s “Disappearing Through the Skylight: Culture and Technology in the 20th Century.”
* Kevin Phillips’ “The Politics of the Rich and Poor: Wealth and the American Electorate in the Reagan Aftermath.”
* Shelby Steele’s “The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America.”
BIOGRAPHY-AUTOBIOGRAPHY
* Caro’s “Means of Ascent.”
* John Espey’s “Strong Drink, Strong Language.”
* Patricia O’Toole’s “The Five of Hearts: An Intimate Portrait of Henry Adams and His Friends, 1880-1918.”
* Richard Rhodes’ “A Hole in the World.”
* T. H. Watkins, “Righteous Pilgrim: The Life and Times of Harold Ickes.”
CRITICISM
* Stanley Crouch for “Notes of a Hanging Judge: Essays and Reviews, 1979-1989.”
* Arthur Danto’s “Encounters and Reflections: Art in the Historical Present.”
* Irving Howe’s “Selected Writings: 1950-1990.”
* Camille Paglia’s “Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson.”
* Wilfrid Sheed’s “Essays in Disguise.”
POETRY
* Frank Bidart’s “In the Western Night.”
* Amy Gerstler’s “Bitter Angel.”
* John Haines’ “New Poems, 1980-1988.”
* Anthony Hecht’s “The Transparent Man.”
* Charles Simic’s “The Book of Gods and Devils.”
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