National Book Critics Circle Winners
Mar 12, 2010
Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel's fictional recreation of the early
life of 16th-century English statesman Thomas Cromwell; Age of Wonder, Richard Holmes' vivid study of the beginnings of science
in the Romantic Age; and Notes From No Man's Land, Eula Biss's collection of critical essays on
American life, were among the winners at the 2009 National Book Critics Circle
Awards held Thursday evening at the New School's Tischman Auditorium in Manhattan.
Awarded the Nona Balakian Citation
for Excellence in Reviewing,
reviewer Joan Acocella opened her remarks to laughter by noting that
critics are "often attacked on the basis of 'who do you think you are?' " So
she went on define just what she thought a great review should be: "Shapely,
deep and personal."
Acocella was followed by author
and critic Edmund White—nominated himself in the autobiography category for his book
City Boy (Bloomsbury)—who introduced his Princeton University colleague,
author Joyce Carol Oates, who was awarded the NBCC's Ivan Sandrof Lifetime
Achievement Award. "Who has she
not written about," White said, describing Oates as a "modern Shakespeare." He went on to say that "she's one of the funniest people I
know; she writes reviews, entertains, teaches full time and writes a lot of
books," White said. Thin, energetic and indeed very funny, Oates cracked jokes, thanked reviewers for the award and described how she "loved to write essays and
reviews and to read them. It's like sinking into a nice warm bath; a new dimension
where the mind opens." She went on to say that "the reviewing voice is my
voice. I feel a kinship with all the reviewers here in this room."
The 2009 Winners of the National
Book Critics Circle Awards:
General Nonfiction: The Age of
Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by
Richard Holmes (Pantheon).
Autobiography: Somewhere Towards
the End by Diana Athill (W.W. Norton)
Biography: Cheever: A Life by Blake
Bailey (Knopf)
Criticism: Notes from No Man's
land: American Essays by Eula Biss
(Graywolf Press)
Poetry: Versed by Rae Armantrout
(Wesleyan University Press)
Fiction:
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (Holt)
A number of authors could not make the presentation and were represented by some one from their publishing house.
Publishing news from across the Web
NY Times asks 8 experts to pick a winner.
More than a third of the winners of Australia's most prestigious literary prize, the Miles Franklin Award, are now out of print.
Guardian: "As the fuss surrounding the Pulitzer and Orwell prizes shows, book awards are increasingly more about hype than substance."
The Guardian: "in hindsight, Pulitzer's puzzling omission was a crisis waiting to happen. From the moment the judges nominated a shortlist that included a posthumous collage of a novel, The Pale King by David Foster Wallace, who died in 2008, they were in trouble."
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| Blue Exorcist, Volume 3 | Graphic Novels |
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| The Lucky One | Mass Market Paper |
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