Booklist Online: Book Reviews from the American Library Association

Man, where did the year go? Awards season is gearing up again. The National Book Award finalists were announced today:
Fiction
American Salvage, by Bonnie Jo Campbell

Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, by Daniyal Mueenuddin

Lark and Termite, by Jayne Anne Phillips

Far North, by Marcel Theroux
Nonfiction
Following the Water: A Hydromancer’s Notebook, by David [...]

Hilary Mantel took home the £50,000 Man Booker Prize for Wolf Hall, the “prohibitive favorite” of the shortlist.
In completely different genre of literary prizes, Ian Frazier’s Lamentations of the Father won the Thurber Prize. You can view the shortlist here.

There’s no question that the Printz Honor–winning Octavian Nothing duet presents readers with an intellectual challenge. In his National Book Award acceptance speech for The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation; Volume One: The Pox Party, Anderson himself described the books as “a 900-page two volume historical epic for teens, written in [...]

Over the last week quite a number of books received awards. Here’s the best of best:
The 2009 NAIBA Books of the Year Prize winners are:
Fiction
 
A Reliable Wife, by Robert Goolrick
Nonfiction
Hurry Down Sunshine, by Michael Greenberg
Trade Paperback Original
Buffalo Lockjaw, by Greg Ames
Picture Book
The Curious Garden, by Peter Brown
Children’s Literature
If I Stay, by Gayle Forman
Paul Auster (Invisible, [...]

Terry Pratchett’s Nation is so exciting and funny that’s it’s almost too easy to forget the tragedy at its center. Young Mau is paddling back to his tiny island nation after spending a month alone as part of his manhood ritual. When he gets there he finds that everyone has been wiped out by a [...]

Yesterday the Man Booker Prize committee announced six finalists for their shortlist:
The Children’s Book, by A. S. Byatt
Summertime, by J. M.  Coetzee
The Quickening Maze, by Adam Foulds
Wolf  Hall, by Hilary Mantel
The Glass Room, by Simon Mawer
The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters
The winner of the £50,000 prize will be announced on October 6th.

Where were you when you heard that Canadian uber-fiction writer Alice Munro has withdrawn her latest collection of stories, Too Much Happiness, from consideration for the annual Giller Prize? (The Giller is the Canadian literary award that has more money attached to it than any other Canadian literary prize: $50,000, that is.) That Munro has [...]

Here’s a quick ‘n dirty look at who won/was nominated for what in the last week:
Brunonia Barry (The Lace Reader, 2008) won the 2009 Baccante literary prize. She will be recognized at a ceremony on September 26th in Matera, Italy.
Author/illustrator Gail Gibbons (Tornadoes, 2009) will receive the prestigious Regina Medal on April 7, 2010 for [...]

Instead of the usual three nominees for the $5,000 Thurber Prize for American Humor, there are four! The winner will be announced Oct. 1. And the finalists are:  
Lamentations of the Father, by Ian Frazier
I Was Told There’d Be Cake, by Sloane Crosley
Wrack and Ruin, by Don Lee
The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death, [...]

The results of the Hugo Awards were announced Sunday night at Anticipation, the Sci-Fi World Con, in Quebec. And the winners are: 
Best Novel
 
The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman
Best Novella
The Erdmann Nexus, by Nancy Kress
Best Novelette
Shoggoths in Bloom, by Elizabeth Bear
Best Short Story
“Exhalation,” (Eclipse Two), by Ted Chiang 
 
Best Related Book
Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: A [...]