Caro book is critics’ nominee

Robert Caro’s “Master of the Senate,” winner of the National Book Award, is among the nonfiction finalists announced Monday for the National Book Critics Circle prize.

Also nominated was William Langewiesche’s controversial “American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center,” which accuses firefighters of looting ground zero after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Reversing the usual trend, the critics’ picks were better known than November’s National Book Awards, which are voted on by writers. Such notable works as Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel “Middlesex” and Edmund Morgan’s biography of Benjamin Franklin, overlooked for the NBAs, are finalists for the book critic awards.

Besides “Middlesex,” fiction nominees include Ian McEwan’s best-selling “Atonement,” William Kennedy’s “Roscoe,” Alexander Hemon’s “Nowhere Man” and Edith Templeton’s “The Darts of Cupid and Other Stories.”

Caro and Morgan were nominated for biography/autobiography.