The National Book Award winners have been anounced and Holtzbrinck companies have four books in the running this year.
The Echo Maker by Richard Powers, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, is a finalist for the fiction award.
About The Echo Maker:
Set in Nebraska during the Platte River's massive spring migrations, this novel explores the power and limits of human intelligence.
Averno by Louise Glück, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux is a finalist in the Poetry category.
About Averno:
Averno is a small crater lake in southern Italy, regarded by the
ancient Romans as the entrance to the underworld. That place gives its
name to Louise Glück’s eleventh collection: in a landscape turned
irretrievably to winter, it is the only source of heat and light, a
gate or passageway that invites traffic between worlds while at the
same time opposing their reconciliation. Averno is an extended
lamentation, its long, restless poems no less spellbinding for being
without plot or hope, no less ravishing for being savage,
grief-stricken. What Averno provides is not a map to a point of arrival or departure, but a diagram of where we are, the harrowing, enduring presence.
Also a finalist in the Poetry catagory is Capacity by James McMichael, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Capacity, the extraordinary new collection from the award-winning poet James McMichael, deliberates an earth that supplies what people need to live. Ocean, land, animate bodies, shelter, thoughts, feelings, talk, sex--each is addressed at the pace of someone dense with wonder's resistance to take for granted even the smallest or most obvious parts of existence.
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang, published by First Second Books is a finalist in the Young People's Literature category and the first graphic novel to ever be nominated for a National Book Award. About American Born Chinese:
This graphic novel portrays the life of a young Chinese-American boy who moves from San Francisco's Chinatown to the suburbs, where he is one of two Asian children in the school.
From Matt: The scriptwriters made quite a few changes from the book, but they were all for the best - and booklover though I am I have to admit that its better to see magic than to read about it.
From Mina: I adore this film. Monsieur Hulot’s very modern sister and brother-in-law don’t know what to do with Tati’s charmingly untidy and bungling protagonist, who inhabits a world where meaning is still more important than appearances.
From Carey: A must see Hayao Miyazaki’s anime is Laputa: Castle in the Sky, originally released in 1986. A fantasy film that explores the altruistic and compassionate nature of humans, aspects lost through repeated exposure to power, technology, and the complexities brought by the combination of the two. 
Comments