National Book Critic Circle Awards Finalists Announced

We're a little late on it, but the National Book Critics Circle Awards Finalists have been announced. The major surprise was Denis Johnson's Tree of Smoke, a book that adorned many Top 10 lists in 2007 and won the National Book Award for fiction, wasn't nominated. Joyce Carol Oates was nominated in both fiction and autobiography, proving that if you write ten to twenty books a year, a few of them are bound to get nominated for something. In the non-fiction category, Tim Weiner's Legacy of Ashes, the National Book Award winner, leads the way, followed by Vroman's staff favorite The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman. My bold predictions in a major categories:

• Fiction: The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
• Non-Fiction: Legacy of Ashes, Tim Weiner
• Autobiography: Writing in an Age of Silence, Sara Paretsky
  
• Biography: Edith Wharton, Hermione Lee
• Criticism: The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, Alex Ross
  

As for poetry, your guess is as good as mine. Read some blog reaction to the nominations here and here.