2016 Winners

 

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FICTION WINNER

Viet Thanh Nguyen
The Sympathizer
(Grove Press, an imprint of Grove Atlantic)

Book cover: The SympathizerViet Thanh Nguyen’s cross-grained protagonist exposes the hidden costs in both countries of America’s tragic Asian misadventure. Nguyen’s probing literary art illuminates how Americans failed in their political and military attempt to remake Vietnam—but then succeeded spectacularly in shrouding their failure in Hollywood distortions. Compelling—and profoundly unsettling.

Read the Booklist review.

 

NONFICTION WINNER

Sally Mann
Hold Still: A Memoir in Photographs
(Little, Brown, and Company, Hachette Book Group)

Book cover: Hold Still: A Memoir in PhotographsMann reveals the deep wellsprings of her most poetic and disconcerting images. She shares, for the first time, the dark side of her notoriety, as well as the daring adventures behind more recent photographic series. Mann shares staggering family secrets, including her in-laws’ deceptive lives and violent deaths, her Mayflower-blue-blood mother’s scandalously unconventional childhood, and her self-sacrificing country-doctor father’s complicated legacy of slave ownership, wealth, and philanthropy.

Read the Booklist review.

 

SHORTLIST

FICTION FINALISTS

Book cover: The Sympathizer

Viet Thanh Nguyen
The Sympathizer
(Grove Press, an imprint of Grove Atlantic)

Book cover: The Book of Aaron

Jim Shepard
The Book of Aron
(Alfred A. Knopf, Penguin Random House, LLC)

Book cover: A Little Life

Hanya Yanagihara
A Little Life
(Doubleday, Penguin Random House, LLC)

NONFICTION FINALISTS

Book cover: H is for Hawk

Helen Macdonald
H is for Hawk
(Grove Press, an imprint of Grove Atlantic)

Book cover: Hold Still: A Memoir in Photographs

Sally Mann
Hold Still
(Little, Brown, and Company, Hachette Book Group)

Book cover: The Invention of Nature

Andrea Wulf
The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World
(Alfred A. Knopf, Penguin Random House, LLC)

 

LONGLIST


Fiction:

Acevedo, Chantel. The Distant Marvels. (Europa)

Boyle, T. C. The Harder They Come. (Ecco)

Campbell, Bonnie Jo. Mothers, Tell Your Daughters. (Norton)

Clegg, Bill. Did You Ever Have a Family. (Simon & Schuster/Scout)

Cusk, Rachel. Outline. (Farrar)

Enright, Anne. The Green Road. (Norton)

Franzen, Jonathan. Purity. (Farrar)

Gottlieb, Eli. Best Boy. (Norton/Liveright)

Hallberg, Garth Risk. City on Fire. (Knopf)

Hannaham, James. Delicious Foods. (Little, Brown)

Johnson, T. Geronimo. Welcome to Braggsville. (Morrow)

Meno, Joe. Marvel and a Wonder. (Akashic)

Nguyen, Viet Thanh. The Sympathizer. (Grove)

Pearlman, Edith. Honeydew. (Little, Brown)

Shepard, Jim. The Book of Aron. (Knopf)

Treuer, David. Prudence. (Riverhead)

Tyler, Anne. A Spool of Blue Thread. (Knopf)

Vollmann, William T. The Dying Grass. (Viking)

Williams, Joy. The Visiting Privilege: New and Collected Stories. (Knopf)

Yanagihara, Hanya. A Little Life. (Doubleday)

Nonfiction:

Appy, Christian G. American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity. (Viking)

Berman, Ari. Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. (Farrar)

Chayes, Sarah. Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security. (Norton)

Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Between the World and Me. (Spiegel & Grau)

Fraser, Steve. The Age of Acquiescence: The Life and Death of American Resistance to Organized Wealth and Power. (Little, Brown)

Green, Kristen. Something Must Be Done about Prince Edward County: A Family, a Virginia Town, a Civil Rights Battle. (Harper)

Haygood, Wil. Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America. (Knopf)

Herrera, Hayden. Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi. (Farrar)

Macdonald, Helen. H Is for Hawk. (Grove)

Mann, Sally. Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs. (Little, Brown)

Marsh, Henry. Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery. (St. Martin’s/Thomas Dunne)

Nabokov, Peter. How the World Moves: The Odyssey of an American Indian Family. (Viking)

Parini, Jay. Empire of Self: A Life of Gore Vidal. (Doubleday)

Sacks, Oliver. On the Move. (Knopf)

Safina, Carl. Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel. (Holt)

Schiff, Stacy. The Witches: Salem, 1692. (Little, Brown)

Smith, Patti. M Train. (Knopf)

Weinberg, Steven. To Explain the World: The Discovery of Modern Science. (Harper)

Winchester, Simon. Pacific: Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators, Fading Empires, and the Coming Collision of the World's Superpowers. (Harper)

Wulf, Andrea. Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World. (Knopf)

AWARD SPONSOR

Carnegie Corporation of New York

AWARD COSPONSORS

Booklist: Leading Book DiscoveryRUSA - Reference and User Services Association Booklist