Congratulations to National Book Award finalists

The list is out. Congratulations to all the finalists.

I have special admiration for the nonfiction finalists, having gone through that little adventure (of creating one):

• David M. Carroll, Following the Water: A Hydromancer's Notebook(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• Sean B. Carroll, Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• Greg Grandin, Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City (Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt)
• Adrienne Mayor, The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy (Princeton University Press)
• T. J. Stiles, The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt(Alfred A. Knopf)

God, I don't know any of the authors, or the books. Usually I know several of the fiction authors/books and one or two of the nonfiction. I guess I've got some reading to do.

Winners will be announced at a ceremony in NYC Nov. 18.

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And if you find the sea of book awards a bit confusing, this piece gives a good basic overview. A snippet:

"If you say to a writer, 'What do you want to win,' they wouldn't say the Nobel because that would suggest they're kind of insane," Cheuse says. "It's like saying they want to be immortal."

Much better to shoot for a Pulitzer. Coveting the Pulitzer is like saying you only need to live to be 112.

The Pulitzers go to epic, fat, sweeping American novels, like "A Thousand Acres" and "Empire Falls." American experiences. American themes. Judges are always describing the finalists as "haunting" or emotionally walloping, or downright painful.

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Have any of you read any of these? I'd love to know what you think.

Any crimes of omission?