National Book Award Finalists

Finalists for the 2014 National Book Award, one of the nation’s most prestigious literary prizes, were announced last week on NPR’s Morning Edition. Each year the National Book Foundation makes awards in four categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and young people’s literature. In order to be eligible, a book must be written by an American citizen and published by an American publisher between December 1 of the previous year and November 30 of the current year.

This year’s fiction and nonfiction finalists are:

Fiction

• An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine

• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doer

• Redeployment by Phil Klay

• Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

• Lila by Marilynne Robinson

Nonfiction

• Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast

• No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes by Anand Gopal

• Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh by John Lahr

• Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China by Evan Osnos

• The Meaning of Human Existence by Edward O. Wilson

For a complete list of finalists in all categories click here.  Winners will be announced November 19.