National Book Critics Circle Awards 2012

The National Book Critics Circle "honors outstanding writing and fosters a national conversation about reading, criticism and literature." National Book Critics Circle Awards "are given each March and honor the best literature published in the United States in six categories—autobiography, biography, criticism, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. These are the only national literary awards chosen by critics themselves."

Here are the 2012 nominees.


Autobiography

The Distance Between Us
by Reyna Grande (M)

My Poets
by Maureen N. McLane (M)

House of Stone: a memoir of home, family and a lost Middle East
by Anthony Shadid (M)

Swimming Studies
by Leanne Shapton (M)

In the House of the Interpreter
by Ngugi wa'Thiong'o (M)



Biography

The Years of Lyndon Johnson: the passage of power
by Robert A. Caro (M)

All We Know: three lives
by Lisa Cohen (M)

Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the making of an American masterpiece 
by Michael Gorra (M)

Robert Duncan: the ambassador from Venus: a biography
by Lisa Jarnot (M)

The Black Count: glory, revolution, betrayal and the real Count of Monte Cristo
by Tom Riess (M)



Fiction

HHhH
by Laurent Binet (M)

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
by Ben Fountain (M)

The Orphan Master's Son
by Adam Johnson (M)

Magnificence
by Lydia Millet (M)

NW
by Zadie Smith (M)




Nonfiction

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: life, death and hope in a Mumbai undercity
by Katherine Boo (M)

Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American power
by Steve Coll (M)

Why Does the World Exist? an existential detective story
by Jim Holt (M)
 
Spillover: animal infections and the next human pandemic
by David Quammen (M)

Far from the Tree: parents, children and the search for identity
by Andrew Solomon (M)