“Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?”

September 16, 2016 6:05 PM

2016 National Book Awards Longlists: The National Book Award Finalists will be revealed on 10/13 and the Winners announced on 11/16.

Fiction:

• The Throwback Special by Chris Bachelder
• What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwel
• Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett
• News of the World by Paulette Jiles
• The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan
• The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth McKenzie
• Miss Jane by Brad Watson
• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
• Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson

Nonfiction:

• America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History by Andrew J. Bacevich
• The Firebrand and the First Lady, Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt and the Struggle for Social Justice by Patricia Bell-Scott
• Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck by Adam Cohen
• Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild
• Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
• Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War by Viet Thanh Nguyen
• Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil
• The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America by Andrés Reséndez
• The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition by Manisha Sinha
• Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson

Poetry:

• The Performance of Becoming Human by Daniel Borzutzky
• Collected Poems 1974–2004 by Rita Dove
• Archeophonics by Peter Gizzi
• The Selected Poems of Donald Hall by Donald Hall
• The Abridged History of Rainfall by Jay Hopler
• Bestiary by Donika Kelly
• World of Made and Unmade by Jane Mead
• Look by Solmaz Sharif
• Blackacre by Monica Youn
• Blue Laws by Kevin Young

Young People’s Literature:

• Booked by Kwame Alexander
• Raymie Nightingale by Kate DiCamillo
• March: Book Three by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell
• When the Sea Turned to Silver by Grace Lin
• When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore
• Burn Baby Burn by Meg Medina
• Pax by Sara Pennypacker and Jon Klassen
• Ghost by Jason Reynolds
• Sachiko: A Nagasaki Bomb Survivor’s Story by Caren Stelson (excerpt)
• The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

posted by Fizz (11 comments total)

Three of those ten poets are people I know!
posted by escabeche at 6:17 PM on September 16, 2016 [7 favorites]

I'm just mentioning it here again because it's such an amazing novel (I mentioned it in another book-ish post of mine), but please go out and find Miss Jane by Brad Watson. It has been the best book that I have read this past year.

Watson explores the life of Miss Jane Chisolm, born in rural, early-twentieth-century Mississippi with a genital birth defect that would stand in the way of the central "uses" for a woman in that time and place: sex and marriage. From the highly erotic world of nature around her to the hard tactile labor of farm life, from the country doctor who befriends her to the boy who loved but was forced to leave her, Miss Jane Chisolm and her world are anything but barren. The potency and implacable cruelty of nature, as well as its beauty, is a trademark of Watson’s fiction. In Miss Jane, the author brings to life a hard, unromantic past that is tinged with the sadness of unattainable loves, yet shot through with a transcendent beauty. Jane Chisolm’s irrepressible vitality and generous spirit give her the strength to live her life as she pleases in spite of the limitations that others, and her own body, would place on her. Free to satisfy only herself, she mesmerizes those around her, exerting an unearthly fascination that lives beyond her still.

posted by Fizz at 6:38 PM on September 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson

After waiting in (digital) line at the library I just got this and okay yes I will start it now.

I have been "off" most non-genre aka literary fiction for a good long while but Woodson's novel is on my radar because I love her and maybe I could be tempted to read some other things on the list if people here are particularly yay about them.
posted by rtha at 6:45 PM on September 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

People are over the moon for the Whitehead book; I haven't read this one but the older novels I've read by him were pretty great.
posted by escabeche at 6:48 PM on September 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

People are over the moon for the Whitehead book; I haven't read this one but the older novels I've read by him were pretty great.

Sag Harbor is a wonderful novel. Definitely worth finding and not a bad place to begin if you're new to Colson Whitehead.
posted by Fizz at 6:55 PM on September 16, 2016

Those non-fiction titles share a curiously prominent thematic similarity for such a broad literary genre. Sort of takes the fun out of guessing which nation is referred to.
posted by sfenders at 7:16 PM on September 16, 2016

The best part of this year's NBA might be the list of judges: James English, Karen Joy Fowler, T. Geronimo Johnson, Julie Otsuka, Jesmyn Ward

Diverse, talented, young.
posted by OHenryPacey at 9:48 PM on September 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

Though this is an excellent list of nominees, it's worth pointing out that there's not one book of short stories on the fiction list, despite some stunners published this year. Amber Sparks was the first to point this out, BTW -- I'm just passing the message on.
posted by Miss T.Horn at 1:56 PM on September 17, 2016

The non-fiction list seems a bit - single minded.

Out of curiosity, I checked what Amazon considers the best (best, not best selling) non-fiction of the year so far.

Not a single overlap. But a lot more diversity.
posted by IndigoJones at 2:37 PM on September 17, 2016

Yeah, strongly echoing - in other years, has the nonfiction longlist been so history-slanted?
posted by estlin at 6:11 PM on September 17, 2016

Some great diversity in the YA list; it's awesome to see that We Need Diverse Books is really having an influence on the kid lit world. I've only read one (Raymie Nightingale) but can't wait to read When the Sea Turned to Silver, Ghost, and (especially) The Sun Is Also a Star. Earlier this year I did an FPP on Ghost author Jason Reynolds, who is awesome.

I just read the first chapter of The Underground Railroad and I'm hooked.
posted by sunset in snow country at 6:27 PM on September 17, 2016