National Book Award for Fiction: We Have a Winner!

The 66^th National Book Awards were announced November 18 on NPR. From a short list of five books (blog of October 14, 2015), one was chosen:

Adam Johnson’s Fortune Smiles: Stories. The six stories in this collection delve into love, loss, natural disasters (Hurricane Katrina), the influence of technology, and life in North Korea. Johnson has been compared to George Saunders, Kurt Vonnegut, and David Mitchell (reason enough to pick up this book and give it a try!), but most say Johnson is an American original who offers his own unique perspective on the world.

Another winner: Non-fiction

Ta-Nehesi Coates won for best non-fiction book of 2015 with his book Between the World and Me in which "Coates takes readers along on his journey through America's history of race and its contemporary resonances through a series of awakenings..." (Publisher).

The National Book Foundation's mission is to celebrate the best of American literature. Starting in 1950, the National Book Award has been the first to find and reward quality writers like poet William Carlos Williams, William Faulkner, Sherman Alexie, Louise Erdrich, Jonathan Franzen, James McBride, Joyce Carol Oates, and Jesmyn Ward.