On November 15, at a Benefit Dinner and Awards Ceremony hosted by Fran Lebowitz, it was announced that the winners of the 2006 National Book Awards are: The Echo Maker (Richard Powers), The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party (M.T. Anderson), The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl (Timothy Egan), and Splay Anthem (Nathaniel Mackey). Also, the 2006 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters was given to the poet Adrienne Rich and the Literarian Award for outstanding service to the american literary community was presented to Robert Silvers and, posthumously, Barbara Epstein.
Every year, as soon as the National Book Foundation releases the list of nominees for the award, the literary world begins to buzz over the selections. Did the committee make the right choice? Place a hold on one of the nominated titles and you be the judge!
The Finalists
Fiction
- Only Revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski
- A Disorder Peculiar to the Country by Ken Kalfus
- The Echo Maker by Richard Powers
- Eat the Document by Dana Spiotta
- The Zero by Jess Walter
Young People’s Literature
- The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson
- Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt
- Sold by Patricia McCormick
- The Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin
- American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
Nonfiction
- At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68 by Taylor Branch
- Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran
- The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan
- 102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn
- The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright
Poetry
- Averno by Louise Glück
- Chromatic by H.L. Hix
- Angle of Yaw by Ben Lerner
- Splay Anthem by Nathaniel Mackey
- Capacity by James McMichael
About the Awards
The National Book Awards were established in 1950 by the American Book Publishers Council, the American Booksellers Association, and the Book Manufacturers Institute to “enhance the public’s awareness of exceptional books.” Nominees must be living U.S. citizens, and their books must have been scheduled for publication in the United States (eBooks are included) between December 1 of the previous year and November 30 of the current year. Nominations are made by publishers.
Each category has its own panel of five judges chosen by the National Book Foundation. These panels in turn select the finalists, who each receive $1,000 cash and a bronze medallion. They also participate in a well-publicized “Finalists’ Reading” on the eve of the Awards Ceremony. Winners get $10,000, a bronze sculpture, and the prestige of being a National Book Award winner.