National Book Award Finalists Announced

As promised, today the National Book Award finalists were announced. There were a few surprises, in my opinion, including the inclusion of Salvatore Scibona for his novel The End (a coup for the wonderful Graywolf Press) and the omission of Nam Le, who I thought was the one shoe-in for the list. Below are the complete lists of finalists in Fiction (I've read a fat lot of none of these books. I am an ignoramus):

Fiction

• The Lazarus Project, by Aleksandar Hemon
• Telex from Cuba, by Rachel Kushner
• Shadow Country, by Peter Matthiessen
• Home, by Marilynne Robinson
• The End, by Salvatore Scibona

Click the link above for a complete list of nominees in Non-Fiction, Poetry, and Young Adult Literature.