A crash course in the National Book Awards

Get ready for the National Book Awards tomorrow night.

On Wednesday evening, at a fancy party at Cipriani's on Wall Street in NYC, the National Book Foundation will award this year's National Book Awards. This event is sort of the Oscars of book publishing, and bold-face literary names will be out in force, including not only the many prize nominees, but presenters such as Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket), Neil Gaiman, Mary Pope Osborne and Ursula Le Guin.

Here's a quick crash course on these awards, which highlight some of the best books published every year and help many of them come to readers' attention.

The National Book Foundation:
Founded to "celebrate the best of American fiction." Location: NYC. Does lots of good stuff to support reading, but the awards are its most visible project.

National Book Awards:
First given out in 1950. Well-known writers who've won them over the years include William Carlos Williams, Saul Bellow, Rachel Carson, Ralph Ellison... well, it's a long and very impressive list. It started with fiction and poetry and in the '60s and '70s grew to include new categories such as science, first novel, and children's books, but by 1984 that got too unwieldy and they cut back. Since 1996, awards have been given for: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and young people's literature.

This Year's Nominees:
Each category starts with a "longlist" of 10 nominees, and then it's narrowed to five finalists. So, 10 nominees to start per category and four categories equals 40 authors honored. That's wonderful. But it's too many to talk about in this space, so here are some highlights based on personal preference.

Fiction:
Elizabeth McCracken was longlisted for her story collection Thunderstruck. I love her quirky and fabulous novel The Giant's House. Richard Powers, known to be a brainy writer of complicated fiction, was nominated for Orfeo, a novel I liked quite a lot even though I'm sure I didn't understand much of it. Neither of these two authors became finalists.

Fiction finalists included Anthony Doerr for All the Light We Cannot See — haven't read it yet but everyone I know who has says it's terrific — and Emily St. John Mandel for the apocalyptic and futuristic Station Eleven — also haven't read it yet but my husband really liked it and I trust his taste.

Non-Fiction
On the non-fiction longlist, New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast has a new book out with the great title of Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? I've only read some of it so far, but I can say it's a great-looking book! Walter Isaacson's back with The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution. After his hugely successful bio of Steve Jobs, this seems like territory he should know well. The venerable Edward O. Wilson, biologist, naturalist, and author of over 20 books, has written casually (ha!) titled The Meaning of Human Existence. Chast and Wilson made it to the finalist list.

Young People's Literature
The longlist in this category has some names with which I'm familiar. The prolific Laurie Halse Anderson is a literary force: no kid can get through school without reading at least one of her books. In our district, they read Fever 1793 and then take a tour of colonial Philadelphia. Her book Speak, about a traumatized high school girl, covers powerful territory. Her latest nominated book is The Impossible Knife of Memory about a girl and her father who is a veteran with PTSD.

Carl Hiaasen, whose adult books are quite popular, was nominated for Skink — No Surrender (my kids liked it!) as was Jacqueline Woodson, a name also frequently on school reading lists and a previous award nominee. Of these three, Woodson is the only finalist.

Poetry:
Of the nominees, the oly name I recognize is Louise Glück. But last year I remember watching a video of the poetry winner, Mary Szybist, accept her award, and it moved me to tears.