Los Angeles Times Book Award Finalists

     

The only fiction finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk [Kindle] is now a finalist for the Los Angeles Times' Book Prize. The dazzling anti-war story spans one day, Thanksgiving, when Billy and his fellow Army heroes are made to parttake in a Dallas Cowboys halftime show with Beyonce. They must also navigate the treachery of a Hollywood film deal, and survive the bloviating gratitude of the rich people they meet in VIP suites, before being shipped back to continue fighting in Iraq. There's plenty of humor, scorching satire, and a minor but significant homo-subtext with Billy still rattled by a mid-battle deep kiss from his hot Sargeant and drunk, over-privileged young married football fans teasing them about Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

FICTION

• Jami Attenberg, The Middlesteins
• Michael Chabon, Telegraph Avenue
• Ben Fountain, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk [Kindle]
• Lauren Groff, Arcadia
• Lydia Millet, Magnificence

FIRST FICTION

• David Abrams, Fobbit
• Kevin P. Keating, The Natural Order of Things
• Lydia Netzer, Shine Shine Shine
• Maggie Shipstead, Seating Arrangements
• Robin Sloan, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

GRAPHIC WORK

• Alison Bechdel, Are You My Mother?
• Leela Corman, Unterzakhn
• Sammy Harkham, Everything Together: Collected Stories
• Spain Rodriguez, Cruisin' With the Hound: The Life and Times of Fred Toote
• Chris Ware, Building Stories

CURRENT INTEREST

• Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
• Steve Coll, Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power
• Karen Elliott House, On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines – and Future
• Jim Sterba, Nature Wars: The Incredible Story of How Wildlife Comebacks Turned Backyards into Battlegrounds
• Jake Tapper, The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor

BIOGRAPHY

• H.W. Brands, The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses Grant in War and Peace
• Robert Caro, The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson
• Alice Kessler-Harris, A Difficult Woman: The Challenging Life and Times of Lillian Hellman
• David Nasaw, The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy
• R.J. Smith, The One: The Life and Music of James Brown

HISTORY

• John Barry, Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul
• George Black, Empire of Shadows: The Epic Story of Yellowstone
• Fergus M. Bordewich, America's Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise That Preserved the Union
• Amy S. Greenberg, A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico
• Geoffrey Kabaservice, Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party

SCIENCE

• Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
• George Dyson, Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe
• Jonathan Gottschall, The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human
• Nate Silver, The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — but Some Don't
• Florence Williams, Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History

After the jump, finalists for Mystery, YA, and Poetry

MYSTERY/THRILLER

• Tana French, Broken Harbor
• Nick Harkaway, Angelmaker
• Fuminori Nakamura, The Thief
• Chris Pavone, The Expats
• Ariel S. Winter, The Twenty-Year Death

YA

• Paolo Bacigalupi, The Drowned Cities
• A.S. King, Ask the Passengers
• Martine Leavitt, My Book of Life by Angel
• Matthew Quick, Boy 21
• Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

POETRY

• Louise Glück, Poems 1962-2012
• Rowan Ricardo Phillips, The Ground: Poems
• D. A. Powell, Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys: Poems
• Bin Ramke, Aerial
• Cole Swensen, Gravesend

Comments

[Sandy]

Bloviating. Love it.