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Kirkus Announces Finalists for Book Prizes

By JOHN WILLIAMS / The New York Times

The literary journal Kirkus Reviews has announced the finalists for its first annual book prizes. The honors for fiction, nonfiction and young readers’ literature each come with a $50,000 award, making them among the most lucrative in the literary world.

Dinaw Mengestu is one of six finalists for the Kirkus fiction prize, for his third novel, “All Our Names.” Sonny Figueroa/The New York Times

The six fiction finalists are “The Blazing World” by Siri Hustvedt; “Euphoria” a novel by Lily King inspired by the life of the anthropologist Margaret Mead; “All Our Names” by Dinaw Mengestu; “Florence Gordon” by Brian Morton; “The Remedy for Love” by Bill Roorbach; and “The Paying Guests” by Sarah Waters.

The nominees were chosen from among books that received star reviews in Kirkus, which is best known for its prepublication assessments.

Nonfiction finalists are “Jonathan Swift” by Leo Damrosch, a biography that won a National Book Critics Circle Award in March; “Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?” by Roz Chast; “The Sixth Extinction” by Elizabeth Kolbert; “The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science” by Armand Marie Leroi; “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” by Thomas Piketty; and “Just Mercy” by Bryan Stevenson.

The finalists for the young readers’ award come from three categories: picture books (“The Right Word” by Jen Bryant and Melissa Sweet, and “Aviary Wonders Inc.” by Kate Samworth); middle-grade books (“El Deafo” by Cece Bell and “The Key That Swallowed Joey Pigza” by Jack Gantos); and young-adult books (“The Story of Owen: Dragon Slayer of Trondheim” by E.K. Johnston and “The Freedom Summer Murders” by Don Mitchell).

Winners will be announced at a ceremony in Austin, Tex., on Oct. 23.

Reference: The New York Times