The finalists have been announced for the National Book Awards, with a big surprise leading the non-fiction list: The report to the nation by the 9/11 Commission, which has been praised as being eminently readable by the standards of government documents, and which has been a bestseller since being released several months ago. On the fiction side, the big news is who didn’t make the cut, notably novelists Philip Roth and Cynthia Ozick. Also, for the first time ever, all the fiction finalists are women.
Tag: 10.14.04
Edinburgh’s Literary Rep Garners UN Honor
The Scottish city of Edinburgh will shortly be named “City of Literature” by the United Nations’ cultural group, UNESCO. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson and Robert Burns all spent time living and/or writing in the city. A host of current UK literary stars had backed Edinburgh’s push for the designation, which could have a significant financial impact for the city.