News

Four NBA Finalists Each For Harper, Random House
Staff -- 10/16/00

Distinguished science fiction author Ray Bradbury will be honored for his contribution to American letters, and HarperCollins and Random House Inc. each claimed four finalists among the 20 books nominated for this year's National Book Awards.

Neil Baldwin, executive director of the National Book Foundation, which administers the awards, said the finalists were chosen from among 835 titles from 198 publishers. The finalists were selected by panels chaired by Norma Fox Mazer for young people's literature; Patricia O'Toole for nonfiction; Mark Doty for p try; and Ron Hansen for fiction. The awards will be presented at a ceremony in New York City on November 15.

Among this year's finalists are previous NBA winners novelist Joyce Carol Oates and p t Galway Kinnell, as well as literary figures such as novelist Susan Sontag and 93-year-old Jacques Barzun.

Fiction:The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter (Pantheon); The Diagnosis by Alan Lightman (Pantheon); Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates (HarperCollins/Ecco Press); Blue Angel by Francine Prose (HarperCollins); and In America by Susan Sontag (FSG).

Nonfiction:From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present by Jacques Barzun (HarperCollins); The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach by Alice Kaplan (Univ. of Chicago); W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963 (Holt) by David Levering Lewis; In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick (Viking Penguin); and Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon by Patrick Tierney (W.W. Norton).

P try:Tell Me by Kim Addonizio (BOA Editions); Blessing the Boats: New and Selected P ms 1988-2000 (BOA Editions); A New Selected P ms by Galway Kinnell (Houghton Mifflin); New Addresses: P ms by Kenneth Koch (Knopf); and The Other Lover by Bruce Smith (Univ. of Chicago).

Young People's Literature:Forgotten Fire by Adam Bagdasarian (DK/Melanie Kroupa); The Book of the Lion by Michael Cadnum (Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers); Many Stones by Carolyn Coman (Front Street); Hurry Freedom! by Jerry Stanley (Crown); and Homeless Bird by Gloria Whelan (HarperCollins Children's Books).