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Percival Everett’s new novel, “James,” a retelling of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” from the perspective of Huck’s enslaved companion, won the National Book Award for fiction on Wednesday. Critics have called Everett’s retelling “a slyly funny masterpiece.”The National Book Award is the latest in a string of accolades for the 67-year-old author, who has dozens of books and short stories under his belt. One of Everett’s books, “Erasure,” was adapted in 2023 into a film, “American Fiction,” starring Jeffrey Wright. The National Book Foundation awarded Jason De León’s “Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling” in the nonfiction category. In response, National Book Foundation executive director Ruth Dickey has said Coates was being honored for his body of work rather than any individual publication.

Persons: Percival Everett’s, “ James, ”, Huckleberry Finn ”, “ James ”, Mark Twain, Jim, Everett, ” Everett, “, Huck Finn, James ”, Booker, Jeffrey Wright, Jason De León’s, Barbara Kingsolver, Paul Coates, Critics, Coates, Ruth Dickey Organizations: BBC, Foundation, Black Classic Press, Book Foundation Locations: America

Two reports released Monday provide a mixed but compelling outlook on the wave of book removals and challenges as the annual Banned Books Week begins for schools, stores and libraries nationwide. The ALA attributed the decline in book challenges in the first eight months of 2024, in part, to the work of anti-censorship activists and “success in courts” against laws that restrict book access. “But, you know, the First Amendment protects the rights of minors as well.”While the ALA’s report shows signs of book challenges abating, objections to certain titles still persist. Like the ALA, PEN said a large portion of the books targeted have racial or LGBTQ themes. It is supported by the ALA, PEN, the Authors Guild, the National Book Foundation and more than a dozen other organizations.

Persons: “, ” Deborah Caldwell, Stone, ” Caldwell, Toni Morrison’s “, Maia Kobabe’s, George M, shouldn’t, abating, Judy Blume, Margaret Atwood, ”, Kasey Meehan Organizations: American Library Association, PEN, Intellectual, Labor, ALA, “, NBC, New College of Florida, Utah State Board of Education, Read, Book Foundation Locations: PEN America, Florida and Iowa, United States, Nassau County , Florida, Utah, Florida

NEW YORK (AP) — A poetry collection, a coming-of-age novel and a history of deep sea exploration are unlikely to be found in the same section of your favorite bookstore. But they all have enough in common to be this year's winners of Science + Literature awards, $10,000 prizes administered by the National Book Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. While ““The Bathysphere Book” is the only winner you could officially classify as science, all three works draw upon science and the natural world. In “Digging Stars,” the protagonist is an astronomer from Zimbabwe who emulates her father's profession. Sze, a National Book Award winner for poetry in 2019, has written often about nature and the cosmos.

Persons: Alfred P, Arthur Sze's “, Rosa, Brad Fox’s, ”, “, Sze, Brad Fox, Arthur Sze, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, Ruth Dickey, Doron Weber, Kai Bird, Martin J, Sherwin's “ Oppenheimer, Margot Lee Shetterly's, Weber, Sloan, ” Weber, Shane Campbell, Staton, Brian Teare, Ricardo Nuila Organizations: National Book Foundation, Sloan Foundation, Book Foundation, Sloan, People’s, Medicine Locations: Zimbabwe, Manhattan, Japan

NEW YORK (AP) — LeVar Burton will host next month's National Book Awards ceremony, replacing the original choice, Drew Barrymore, who was dropped because of her decision to resume taping of her show during the writers' strike. The National Book Foundation, which presents the awards, announced Burton's selection Friday. Burton, a longtime advocate for reading known for his roles in the TV miniseries “Roots” and in “Star Trek: The Next Generation," also hosted the ceremony in 2019. The National Book Awards will take place at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City on Nov. 15, when winners will be announced in five competitive categories. Oprah Winfrey will be a guest speaker and poet Rita Dove will receive a lifetime achievement medal.

Persons: — LeVar Burton, Drew Barrymore, Burton, “, Oprah Winfrey, Rita Dove Organizations: Book Foundation, “, Cipriani, Associated Press Locations: New York City

☆ The National Book Awards Longlist
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-16 | by ( Melissa Kirsch | More About Melissa Kirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

One of the best birthday gifts I’ve ever received was a stack of four or five books, all published the year I was born. I hadn’t read John le Carré’s “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” but now I felt a connection to it; we’d both come into being at roughly the same time. The all-you-can-read buffet of books available begs a reader, especially a slow reader like me, to develop a strategy. This week, the National Book Foundation announced the longlist for the 2023 National Book Awards, presenting a crop of books on which a hungry reader could happily feast from now through the end of the year. (“Chain-Gang All-Stars,” by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah and “Fire Weather,” by John Vaillant just moved to the top of my list.)

Persons: I’ve, John le Carré’s, ”, Ursula K, Le Guin, I’m, ’, Nana Kwame Adjei, John Vaillant Organizations: Book Foundation

NEW YORK (AP) — Historical novels by Jayne Anne Phillips and Paul Harding and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s dystopian prison novel “Chain-Gang All-Stars” are among the nominees on the National Book Awards long list for fiction. The judges, who include authors, critics and booksellers, will narrow the lists to five next month, and winners will be announced Nov. 15 during a dinner ceremony in downtown Manhattan. The foundation also will present honorary awards to poet Rita Dove and bookseller Paul Yamazaki of the famed City Lights store in San Francisco. Drew Barrymore had been scheduled to host the ceremony but was dropped by the foundation after she resumed her talk show in the midst of the Hollywood actors and writers strike. The foundation has not yet named a replacement.

Persons: Jayne Anne Phillips, Paul Harding, Nana Kwame Adjei, Phillips, Harding, ”, Mona Susan Power's multigenerational, ” Eliot Duncan’s, Hanna Pylväinen’s, Tania James’s, Justin Torres, Aaliyah, LaToya Watkins, “, Jesmyn, James McBride's “, Lauren Groff's “, Wilds, Jamel Brinkley's, Rita Dove, Paul Yamazaki, Drew Barrymore Organizations: National, Foundation, of Dolls, Book Foundation, Hollywood Locations: Manhattan, San Francisco

NEW YORK (AP) — A comprehensive new biography of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr, a memoir on family by the prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen and an exploration of the crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s are among 10 books on the nonfiction longlist of the National Book Awards. The National Book Foundation, which presents the awards, also released its poetry longlist Thursday, a day after announcing 10 nominees each in the categories of young people's literature and books in translation. Judges will next month reduce each list to five finalists, with the winners to be announced during a Manhattan dinner ceremony on Nov. 15. Political Cartoons View All 1160 ImagesOthers on the poetry longlist are John Lee Clark's “How to Communicate,” Oliver de la Paz's “The Diaspora Sonnets,” Annelyse Gelman's “Vexations,” José Olivarez's “Promises of Gold,” Brandon Som's “Tripas,” Charif Shanahan's “Trace Evidence” and Evie Shockley's “suddenly we.”

Persons: Martin Luther King Jr, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Jonathan Eig's “, Nguyen's, ” Donovan X, Ned Blackhawk's “, Prudence Peiffer's, Cristina Rivera Garza's “ Liliana’s, ” Christina Sharpe's, ”, Shehadeh's, ” John Vaillant's, Williams, Monica Youn, Paisley Rekdal, Craig Santos Perez, John Lee Clark's, ” Oliver de la, ” Brandon Som's “, Evie Shockley's “ Organizations: Book Foundation, Native Peoples, New York, Justice, “ Locations: Manhattan, America, ” Utah

NEW YORK (AP) — The National Book Award longlist for young people's literature features a range of grownup topics, from the deadly famine in Ukraine in the 1930s to the 1963 March on Washington to the underpinnings of the Internet. The list of 10 was announced Wednesday by the National Book Foundation, which also released 10 nominees in literature in translation, with original languages including Korean, Arabic and French. The lists, along with those for fiction, nonfiction and poetry to be announced later this week, will be narrowed next month to five in each category. The winners will be revealed during a Manhattan ceremony Nov. 15. Drew Barrymore had been scheduled to host but was dropped this week by the foundation after she resumed taping her talk show in the midst of the Hollywood writers' strike.

Persons: Drew Barrymore, Katherine Marsh's “, Dan Nott's, Yohuru Williams, Michael G, Long's, Huda, Dan Santat's, ” Kenneth M, Cadow's, ” Alyson Derrick's, Betty C, Tang's, Juan Cárdenas, Lizzie Davis, Bora Chung, ”, Anton Hur, David Diop, Sam Taylor, Jenny Erpenbeck, “, Michael Hofmann, Stênio Gardel, Bruna Dantas Lobato, Khaled Khalifa, Leri Price, Fernanda Melchor, Sophie Hughes, Pilar Quintana's, Lisa Dillman, Astrid Roemer's “, Lucy Scott, Mohamed Mbougar Sarr's, Lara Vergnaud Organizations: National Book Foundation, Hollywood, Jobs, “ Locations: Ukraine, Washington, Manhattan, Ukrainian, Provinces, “, Miami

NEW YORK (AP) — The National Book Awards dropped Drew Barrymore as the host for this year's ceremony on Tuesday, a day after her talk show taped its first episode since the Hollywood writers strike began. “The National Book Awards is an evening dedicated to celebrating the power of literature, and the incomparable contributions of writers to our culture," the organization said in a statement. “I think first and foremost, this is obviously way bigger than just ‘The Drew Barrymore Show’ and writers. Barrymore drew criticism from members of both guilds for crossing the picket line. When Barrymore was announced as host of this year's National Book Awards, scheduled for Nov. 15, the chair of the National Book Foundation's board of directors lauded her work championing books.

Persons: Drew Barrymore, “, ” Chelsea White, ’, Barrymore, ”, Ted Sarandos, Oprah Winfrey, ” David Steinberger, Winfrey, Ms, John Carucci, Ryan Pearson Organizations: Hollywood, Foundation, CBS, American Federation of Radio, Television Artists, WGA, MTV, Netflix, May's PEN, PEN, Associated Press Locations: hollywood

The National Book Foundation, the nonprofit which presents the book awards, announced Friday that Dove is this year’s winner of its medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, an honor previously given to Toni Morrison, Edmund White and Art Spiegelman among others. She is best known for her poetry, but has worked in other art forms and is currently planning a memoir. “Dove’s work transforms the everyday into the remarkable, brilliantly blending music, politics, and, let’s not forget, pleasure.”Political Cartoons View All 1148 ImagesThe National Book Award ceremony is scheduled for Nov. 15 in Manhattan, with Drew Barrymore hosting. Dove has received so many previous honors, lifetime and competitive, that it’s almost surprising the book foundation didn’t get around to her sooner. A fellow Pulitzer winner, poet Jericho Brown, will introduce Dove at the National Book Awards.

Persons: —, Rita Dove, I’m, Toni Morrison, Edmund White, Spiegelman, “ Thomas, Beulah, ”, Oscar, John Williams, Rita Dove’s, ” Ruth Dickey, “, let’s, Drew Barrymore, Dove, Paul Yamazaki, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Ruth Lilly, Jericho Brown, Shakespeare, William Blake, Rosa Parks, Fred Viebahn, Cave Organizations: Book Foundation, Luck, Lights Booksellers & Publishers, Poet, City, Presidential, University of Miami, University of Iowa, Pulitzer, Humanities, of Arts, NAACP, Poetry Foundation, Library of Congress, American Academy of Arts and, University of Virginia Locations: Ivory, Manhattan, San Francisco's, Akron , Ohio, Ohio, Charlottesville , Virginia, New York City

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