Finalists 2010 National Book Critics Circle Book Award

America's The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC), founded in 1974, consists of nearly 700 active book reviewers. Each year they present awards for the best book in six categories: fiction, general nonfiction, biography, autobiography, poetry, and criticism. The 36 finalists for the 2010 award have just been announced.

Prior to 1997, the award was limited to American citizens, when the eligibility rules were changed to include all authors of the best books published in the United States, regardless of nationality. Awards are announced in March each year with Finalists announced in January.

Tragic keeps a record of past winners over at Book Awards US and Literary Awards Australia.

Fiction Category Finalists

• Jennifer Egan, A Visit From The Goon Squad, Knopf
• Jonathan Franzen. Freedom. Farrar, Straus And Giroux.
• David Grossman, To The End Of The Land. Knopf.
• Hans Keilson.Comedy In A Minor Key. Farrar, Straus And Giroux
• Paul Murray. Skippy Dies. Faber & Faber.

Biography Category Finalists

• Sarah Bakewell. How To Live, Or A Life Of Montaigne. Other Press
• Selina Hastings. The Secret Lives Of Somerset Maugham: A Biography. Random House.
• Yunte Huang. Charlie Chan: The Untold Story Of The Honorable Detective And His Rendezvous With American History. Norton.
• Thomas Powers. The Killing Of Crazy Horse. Knopf.
• Tom Segev. Simon Wiesenthal: The Lives And Legends. Doubleday

Autobiography Category Finalists

• Kai Bird, Crossing Mandelbaum Gate Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978, Scribner
• David Dow, The Autobiography of an Execution, Twelve
• Christopher Hitchens Hitch-22: A Memoir, Twelve
• Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, Hiroshima in the Morning, Feminst Press
• Patti Smith, Just Kids, Ecco
• Darin Strauss, Half a Life, McSweeney’s

Criticism Category Finalists

• Elif Batuman. The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them. Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Terry Castle, The Professor and Other Writings. Harper
• Clare Cavanagh. Lyric Poetry and Modern Politics: Russia, Poland, and the West. Yale University Press
• Susie Linfield. The Cruel Radiance. University of Chicago Press
• Ander Monson. Vanishing Point: Not a Memoir. Graywolf

Nonfiction Category Finalists

• Barbara Demick. Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea. Spiegel & Grau
• S.C. Gwynne. Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American, Scribner
• Jennifer Homans. Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet. Random
• Siddhartha Mukherjee. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer. Scribner
• Isabel Wilkerson. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration. Random

Poetry Category Finalists

• Anne Carson. Nox. New Directions
• Kathleen Graber. The Eternal City. Princeton University Press
• Terrance Hayes. Lighthead. Penguin Poets
• Kay Ryan. The Best of It. Grove
• C.D. Wright. One with Others: [a little book of her days]. Copper Canyon