The National Book Foundation has announced the finalists for the 2010 National Book Award:
Peter Carey, Parrot and Olivier in America (Alfred A. Knopf)
Read the New York Times Review
______________________________________________
Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule (McPherson & Co.)
Read the Kirkus Review
____________________________________________________
Nicole Krauss, Great House (W.W. Norton & Co.)
Read the Los Angeles Times Review
_______________________________________________
Lionel Shriver, So Much for That
(Harper, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers)
Read the New York Times Review
_______________________________________________
Karen Tei Yamashita, I Hotel (Coffee House Press)
Read the International Examiner Review
The big news, of course, is the omission of Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom from this list. Also missing are Matterhorn (Karl Marlantes) and The Imperfectionists (Tom Rachman), two other well-reviewed best-selling titles. As far as I’m concerned, it’s more interesting that two of these nominated books are virtually unknown and unreviewed. Is the absence of Freedom from this list a matter of sour grapes on the part of the reviewers (Andrei Codrescu, Samuel R. Delany, Sabina Murray, Joanna Scott, and Carolyn See) or do the more obscure titles selected have greater literary value? I haven’t read any of the nominees, so I’m not really in a position to say.
Have you read any? What are your thoughts? Speaking for myself, I’m interested in getting my hands on them to find out!
