And The Winners Are... National Book Awards are announced

National Book Awards 2009

What is The National Book Award? "Judges consider only books written by American citizens and published in the United States between December 1 of the previous year and November 30 of the current year. Only publishers can nominate books for the National Book Award, although panel chairs can request books publishers have not nominated." The categories are: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People’s Literature.

In 2009, 193 publishers submitted 1,129 books for the 2009 National Book Awards.

The total number of books by genre:

Fiction - 236, Nonfiction -481, Poetry - 161, Young People's Lit. - 251

And The Winners Are...

Fiction: Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin

Nonfiction: T. J. Stiles, The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt

Poetry: Keith Waldrop, Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy

YA Literature: Phillip Hoose, Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice

Have you read any of these books? Let the Great World Spin in on my Kindle right now. Any books you felt should have won instead? Share your thoughts here! And let me know what is a winner on your bookshelf! In the meantime if you'd like to see all finalists for the award, here's the LINK.