Announcing the 2018 Andrew Carnegie Medals Shortlist Titles

The Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction are awarded annually for  fiction and nonfiction books for adult readers published in the U.S. in the previous year. They are named in honor of the 19th century American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie in recognition of his deep belief in the power of books and learning to change the world. This award is supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and administered by the American Library Association. The shortlist and winners are selected by a seven member selection committee of library experts who work with adult readers. The winners, one each for fiction and nonfiction, are announced at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in February.  Judge for yourself which of the following six shortlisted books is your winner. Take a read of all six or just one and then see if the recipient of the $5000 reward is also your winner!

Fiction                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan
From New York mobsters to the first woman diver at the Brooklyn Naval Station during WWII to the motley crew of a merchant-marine ship in U-boat-infested waters, Egan's insightful and propulsive saga portrays complex and intriguing individual navigating the rising tides of war.

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
Saunders' boldly imagined, sensitive, and funny historical and metaphysical drama pivots on President Lincoln's grief over the death of his young son, Willie, as the cemetery's dead tell their stories in a wild and wily improvisation on the afterlife.

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
The story of a Mississippi family - brother and sister Jojo and Kayla and their troubled mother, Leonie, and their legacy of grief and spiritual gifts. Ward explores unresolved racial tensions and the many ways humans create cruelty and suffering. The novel is down-to-earth and magical.


Nonfiction
You Don't Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir by Sherman Alexie
Alexie presents a courageous, enlightening, anguished, and funny memoir told in prose and poetry that pays tribute to his Spokane Indian mother and reveals many complex traumas and tragedies of reservation life, as well as his own struggles.

The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner by Daniel Ellsberg
In a griping mix of memoir and expose, Ellsberg recounts with searing specificity long-hidden facts about the U.S. government's perilously inadequate control of nuclear weapons - an arsenal that endangers all life on Earth - and calls for the dismantling of this Doomsday Machine.

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
Grann's true-crime history takes readers to early-1920s Oklahoma, where oil was discovered beneath the Osage territory and where members of the Osage Indian Nation were murdered. This is a riveting story that includes the accruing of power by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI.