It's been a great year for Junot Díaz: The Pulitzer Prize-winning author recently won a coveted MacArthur genius grant, and his latest book, "This Is How You Lose Her," is a bestseller. Now "Lose Her" has landed him on the finalist list for the National Book Award. Díaz is joined by veteran writer and McSweeney's founder Dave Eggers ("A Hologram for the King"), Pulitzer Prize finalist Louise Erdrich ("The Round House"), Ben Fountain ("Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk") and newcomer Kevin Powers ("The Yellow Birds").
Nonfiction finalists include New Yorker staff writer Katherine Boo's journey in an Indian slum (“Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity"), tireless biographer and journalist Robert A. Caro, for his fourth book on Lyndon B. Johnson (“The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson") and a posthumous nomination for New York Times foreign correspondent Anthony Shadid (“House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family and a Lost Middle East"), who died earlier this year while on assignment in Syria.
David Steinberger, chairman of the National Book Foundation's Board of Directors, made the announcement on this morning's "Morning Joe." Steinberger emphasized that the award is given to the "best American books" written each year, limited to 20 finalists from "tens of thousands" of books. This year's list, however, features more well-known authors than previous years: According to the New York Times, the National Book Foundation seems to have responded to criticism "that its nominations went to obscure works that sold few copies."
The National Book Foundation also named finalists in poetry and young people's literature. The full list is available here. Watch the announcement below. The award recipients will be announced on Nov. 14.
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