This year’s National Book Awards were announced Wednesday night in a typically fancy-pants ceremony at Cipriani’s. The winners — also known as what your book club will start recommending this month — are ahead, in bold.
FICTION
Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers
Jhumpa Lahiri, The Lowland
James McBride, The Good Lord Bird
Thomas Pynchon, Bleeding Edge
George Saunders, Tenth of December
NONFICTION
Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin
Wendy Lower, Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields
George Packer, The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America
Alan Taylor, The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832
Lawrence Wright, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, & the Prison of Belief
POETRY
Frank Bidart, Metaphysical Dog
Lucie Brock-Broido, Stay, Illusion
Adrian Matejka, The Big Smoke
Matt Rasmussen, Black Aperture
Mary Szybist, Incarnadine: Poems
YOUNG PEOPLE’S LITERATURE
Kathi Appelt, The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp
Cynthia Kadohata, The Thing About Luck
Tom McNeal, Far Far Away
Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone
Gene Luen Yang, Boxers & Saints
