Thursday, June 18, 2009

National Book Awards Challenge

This challenge is in honor of the National Book Foundation's 60th Anniversary of the National Book Award.

The Foundation will be celebrating the month of July with a blog (will link soon) paying tribute to the past award winners. The blog's tributes will be written by a select group of commentators composed of past Winners, Finalists, judges, and other prominent writers, editors, bloggers, librarians, booksellers, and critics.

Rachel from A Bohemian's Book Reviews and I are co-hosting this challenge.

Please head over to our National Book Awards Challenge site and sign up! You can also post a link to your reviews here.

Option 1: Bronze Medal
Read one book from the list between June 15th and December 31st.
Option 2: Silver Medal
Read three books from the list between June 15th and December 31st.
Option 3: Gold Medal
Read five books from the list between June 15th and December 31st.

Amanda's National Book Awards List
**Going for the Gold**
1. Europe Central - William T. Vollmann
2. Charming Billy - Alice McDermott (Finished June 23, 2009)
3. Cold Mountain - Charles Frazier (Finished July 3, 2009)
4. Three Junes - Julia Glass (Finished August 11, 2009)
5. Let the Great World Spin - Colum McCann (Finished May 25, 2009)


National Book Awards List
1950 The Man With the Golden Arm - Nelson Algren
1951 The Collected Stories of William Faulkner
1952 From Here to Eternity - James Jones
1953 Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
1954 The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow
1955 A Fable - William Faulkner
1956 Ten North Frederick - John O'Hara
1957 The Field of Vision - Wright Morris
1958 The Wapshot Chronicle - John Cheever
1959 The Magic Barrel - Bernard Malamud
1960 Goodbye Columbus - Philip Roth
1961 The Waters of Kronos - Conrad Richter
1962 The Moviegoer - Walker Percy
1963 Morte D'Urban - J.F. Powers
1964 The Centaur - John Updike
1965 Herzog - Saul Bellow
1966 The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter - Katherine Anne Porter
1967 The Fixer - Bernard Malamud
1968 The Eigth Day - Thornton Wilder
1969 Steps - Jerzy Kosinski
1970 Them - Joyce Carol Oates
1971 Mr. Sammler's Planet - Saul Bellow
1972 The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor - Flannery O'Connor
1973 Chimera - John Barth
1973 Augustus - John Williams
1974 Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
1974 A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories - Isaac Bashevis Singer
1975 Dog Soldiers - Robert Stone
1975 The Hair of Harold Roux - Thomas Williams
1976 JR - William Gaddis
1977 The Spectator Bird - Wallace Stegner
1978 Blood Tie - Mary Lee Settle
1979 Going After Cacciato - Tim O'Brien
1980 Stained Glass - William F. Buckley, Jr.
1980 The World According to Garp - John Irving
1980 Bendigo Shafter - Louis L'Amour
1980 The Green Ripper - John D.Mac Donald
1980 Jem - Frederick Pohl
1980 Sophie's Choice - William Styron
1980 The Book of Dun Cow - Walter Wangerin, Jr.
1981 Birdy - William Wharton
1981 Sister Wolf - Ann Arensberg
1981 The Stories of John Cheever - John Cheever
1981 Plains Song - Wright Morris
1982 Dew Dales Loves Sophie to Death - Robb Forman
1982 So Long, See You Tomorrow - William Maxwell
1982 Rabbit is Rich - John Updike
1983 The Women of Brewster Place - Gloria Naylor
1983 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
1983 The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty - Eudora Welty
1984 Stones for Ibarra - Harriet Doerr
1984 Victory Over Japan - Ellen Gilchrist
1985 White Noise - Don DeLillo
1985 Easy in the Islands - Bob Shacochis
1986 World's Fair - E.L. Doctorow
1987 Paco's Story - Larry Heinemann
1988 Paris Trout - Pete Dexter
1989 Spartina - John Casey
1990 Middle Passage - Charles Johnson
1991 Mating - Norman Rush
1992 All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy
1993 The Shipping News - Annie Proulx
1994 A Frolic of His Own - William Gaddis
1995 Sabbath's Theater - Philip Roth
1996 Ship Fever and Other Stories - Andrea Barrett Ship
1997 Cold Mountain - Charles Frazier
1998 Charming Billy - Alice McDermott
1999 Waiting - Ha Jin2000 In America - Susan Sontag
2001 The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen
2002 Three Junes - Julia Glass
2003 The Great Fire - Shirley Hazzard
2004 The News from Paraguay - Lily Tuck
2005 Europe Central - William T. Vollmann
2006 The Echo Maker - Richard Powers
2007 Tree of Smoke - Denis Johnson
2008 Shadow Country - Peter Matthiessen
2009 Let the Great World Spin - Colum McCann