Finalists for 2009 National Book Awards are Announced

The 60th annual National Book Award Finalists have been announced for 2009. The prize is awarded to one work out of five nominees in each of four genres (fiction, nonfiction, poetry and young people’s literature). This year, 193 publishers submitted a total of 1,129 books for consideration.

Among the nominees are Colum McCann’s novel, Let the Great World Spin, David M. Carroll’s nonfiction book, Following the Water: A Hydromancer’s Notebook, and Deborah Heiligman’s biography, Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith, for young adults.

Special awards will also be presented at the ceremony. Gore Vidal will receive the Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, which comes with $10,000 and is awarded for a life of literary service and a corpus of work. Dave Eggers will receive the Literarian Award, for individuals whose work has expanded the audience for literature and enhanced the cultural value of literature in America.

The benefit dinner and award ceremony will take place on Nov. 18 at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City. Master of ceremonies will be satirist, author and actor Andy Borowitz. Borowitz writes a popular website-turned-syndicated fake news column The Borowitz Report, and was the inaugural winner of the National Press Club’s award for humor in 2004.

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