Congratulations to Lauren Redniss and Thanhha Lai! Redniss’s visual biography of Marie Curie, Radioactive, and Lai’s novel, Inside Out and Back Again, have been named as finalists for the National Book Awards. Finalists receive a bronze medal and a $1,000 cash award and stand to receive $10,000 plus a bronze statue if they win their category. Winners will be announced at the National Book Awards Benefit Dinner and Ceremony in November.
– Annie
The NBA finalists have been announced and we’re thrilled that Lionel Shriver’s book, So Much for That has made the list. This is a deeply humane novel about the pitfalls of our healthcare system and one family’s struggle to come to terms with disease, dying, and the obscene cost of medical care in modern America
"Shriver writes in precise, dynamic prose.. If anyone's going to perk up the often-limp niceness of the women's novel it's Shriver, who has no use for earth mothers or noble victims…The climax offers more fun, vengeful satisfaction and pure tenderness than any treatise on the future of healthcare."
– Ella Taylor, Los Angeles Times
On the non-fiction front, we are absolutely giddy that Patti Smith's incredible memoir, Just Kids, received a nomination. The New York Times Book Review wrote: "“Terrifically evocative…the most spellbinding and diverting portrait of funky-but-chic New York in the late ’60s and early ’70s that any alumnus has committed to print…This enchanting book is a reminder that not all youthful vainglory is silly; sometimes it’s preparation. Few artists ever proved it like these two.”
Send an email to me (librarylovefest AT harpercollins DOT com) and I’ll send you a copy of So Much for That or Just Kids.
-Virginia
