The American Library Association today announced six books as finalists for the 2013 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction, awarded for the previous year's best fiction and nonfiction books written for adult readers and published in the U.S.

The 2013 shortlisted titles, (selected from a longlist of impressive books) are:

Fiction:

Canada, by Richard Ford (Ecco).

The Round House, by Louise Erdrich (HarperCollins).

This Is How You Lose Her, by Junot Díaz (Riverhead).

Nonfiction:

The Mansion of Happiness: A History of Life and Death, by Jill Lepore (Knopf).

Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis,” by Timothy Egan (Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).

Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic, by David Quammen (W. W. Norton).

The awards, established in 2012, are made possible by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and are co-sponsored by ALA’s Booklist publications and the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), with the nominees and winners selected by a panel of library professionals chaired by PW contributing editor Nancy Pearl. Along with a medal presentation at ALA’s annual conference in Chicago, IL, on June 30, each winning author will receive $5,000 and the four finalists will each receive $1,500.

Last year's awards went to Irish novelist Anne Enright for her book The Forgotten Waltz (W.W. Norton) and Robert K. Massie, who took home top honors for nonfiction for Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman (Random House).