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Andrew Carnegie Medal For Excellence In Nonfiction
__NOTOC__ The Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction were established in 2012 to recognize the best fiction and nonfiction books for adult readers published in the U.S. in the previous year. They are named in honor of nineteenth-century American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie in recognition of his deep belief in the power of books and learning to change the world. The award is supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and administered by the American Library Association (ALA). ''Booklist'' and the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) cosponsor the awards. The shortlist and winners are selected by a seven-member selection committee of library experts who work with adult readers. The annually appointed selection committee includes a chair, three ''Booklist'' editors or contributors, and three former members of RUSA CODES Notable Books Council. The winners, one each for fiction and nonfiction, are announced at an event in June at the Americ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Library Association
The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members as of 2021. History During the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, 103 librarians, 90 men and 13 women, responded to a call for a "Convention of Librarians" to be held October 4–6 at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. At the end of the meeting, according to Ed Holley in his essay "ALA at 100", "the register was passed around for all to sign who wished to become charter members," making October 6, 1876, the date of the ALA’s founding. Among the 103 librarians in attendance were Justin Winsor (Boston Public, Harvard), William Frederick Poole (Chicago Public, Newberry), Charles Ammi Cutter (Boston Athenaeum), Melvil Dewey, and Richard Rogers Bowker. Attendees came from as far west as Chicago and from England. The ALA wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
All The Light We Cannot See
''All the Light We Cannot See'' is a 2014 war novel that was written by American author Anthony Doerr. The novel is set during World War II and centers around the characters Marie-Laure Leblanc, a blind French girl who takes refuge in her uncle's house in Saint-Malo after Paris is invaded by Nazi Germany; and Werner Pfennig, a bright German boy who is accepted into a military school because of his skills in radio technology before being sent to the military. The novel is written in a poetic style, and almost all of the chapters alternate between Marie-Laure's story and Werner's story, both of which parallel each other. The narrative has a nonlinear structure, flashing between the Battle of Saint-Malo and the events leading up to it. The story has moral themes such as the dangers of possession and the nature of sacrifice, and portrays fascination with science and nature. Doerr's first inspiration came from a 2004 train ride, during which he watched a man become angry because hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Great Believers
''The Great Believers'' is a historical fiction novel by Rebecca Makkai, published June 4, 2018 by Penguin Books. The book is a Carnegie Medal winner, National Book Award finalist, Stonewall Book Award winner, and Pulitzer Prize finalist. Reception ''The Great Believers'' received starred reviews from ''Kirkus'', ''Booklist'', ''Publishers Weekly,'' and ''Shelf Awareness,'' as well as a positive review from ''Library Journal,'' ''The New York Times Book Review,'' ''The Guardian,'' ''Los Angeles Review of Books,'' ''Entertainment Weekly,'' ''The Star Tribune,'' ''The Kenyon Review,'' NPR, ''The San Francisco Chronicle,'' ''The Boston Globe,'' and Lambda Literary, among others. Writing for the ''Los Angeles Times'', Dan López called ''The Great Believers'' "a heartbreaking meditation on AIDS, loss, and friendship." ''Kirkus'' said the book was "as compulsively readable as it is thoughtful and moving." NPR's Celia McGee noted, "Makkai’s writing isn’t the kind that calls ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lincoln In The Bardo
''Lincoln in the Bardo'' is a 2017 experimental novel by American writer George Saunders. It is Saunders's first full-length novel and was the ''New York Times'' hardcover fiction bestseller for the week of March 5, 2017. The novel takes place during and after the death of Abraham Lincoln's son William "Willie" Wallace Lincoln and deals with the president's grief at his loss. The bulk of the novel, which takes place over the course of a single evening, is set in the ''bardo''—an intermediate space between life and rebirth. ''Lincoln in the Bardo'' received critical acclaim, and won the 2017 Booker Prize. Many publications later ranked it one of the best novels of its decade. Conception and research Background The novel was inspired by a story Saunders's wife's cousin told him about how Lincoln visited his son Willie's crypt at Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown on several occasions to hold the body, a story that seems to be verified by contemporary newspaper accounts. In March ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sing, Unburied, Sing
''Sing, Unburied, Sing'' is the third novel by the American author Jesmyn Ward and published by Scribner in 2017. It focuses on a family in the fictional town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi. The novel received overwhelmingly positive reviews, and was named by ''The New York Times'' as one of the 10 Best Books of 2017. Characters Joseph (Jojo) is a main character and one of three narrators. He is the child of Michael, who is white, and Leonie, who is Black. The story starts on his thirteenth birthday at his maternal grandparents' house in the fictional town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi. Throughout the book Jojo often acts as a parent to his younger sister Kayla because his mother, Leonie, is not always present. Because of his strained relationship with his mother, Jojo looks up to his grandfather, who has been more of a paternal figure while Jojo's father was in prison, and wishes to be like him. Throughout the book, Jojo has many conversations with spirits while helping them move ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manhattan Beach (novel)
''Manhattan Beach'' is a historical novel by American writer Jennifer Egan. It was published in 2017 by Scribner. The National Book Foundation listed the book in their 2017 National Book Award Longlist in the Fiction category. ''Time'' magazine selected it as one of its top ten novels of 2017. Plot Eleven-going-on-twelve Anna Kerrigan and her father Eddie meet with gangster Dexter Styles in late 1934 at the Styles mansion on the shore of Manhattan Beach in Brooklyn, New York City. Eddie is a former vaudeville performer who switched to become a stockbroker during the Roaring Twenties, then was ruined in the Great Depression. Now he makes very little money as a bagman in the criminal underworld, and he tells Styles he needs money to pay for a wheelchair for his brain-damaged and paralyzed daughter, Lydia, Anna's younger sister. Unknown to Anna, Eddie agrees to work for Styles in his gambling operations. Anna puts her bare feet into the wintry cold seawater at Manhattan Beach to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swing Time (novel)
''Swing Time'' is a novel by British writer Zadie Smith, released in November 2016. The story takes place in London, New York and West Africa, and focuses on two girls who can tap dance, alluding to Smith's childhood love of tap dancing. Plot Beginning in 2008, the novel tells the story of two mixed-race, black and white, girls who meet in 1982 in a tap class in London. The unnamed narrator, who has a white, working-class father, and a mother of Jamaican descent is immediately drawn to the precocious Tracey, who has a white mother and a black father in prison, as they have the same skin colour and are the only black children at their dance lessons. Despite the fact that the narrator's semi-intellectual mother looks down on Tracey, the two become best friends as they live in neighbouring estate flats. While the narrator's dance career is hampered by her flat feet, Tracey is something of a prodigy and goes on to win many awards. Tracey credits this in part to the fact that her fa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Novel
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version can be written in two forms: the double-storey a and single-storey ɑ. The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English grammar, " a", and its variant " an", are indefinite articles. History The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also written 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet, which consisted entirely of consonants (for that reason, it is also called an abjad to distinguish it fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Underground Railroad (novel)
''The Underground Railroad'' is a historical fiction novel by American author Colson Whitehead, published by Doubleday in 2016. The alternate history novel tells the story of Cora, a slave in the Antebellum South during the 19th century, who makes a bid for freedom from her Georgia plantation by following the Underground Railroad, which the novel depicts as a rail transport system with safe houses and secret routes. The book was a critical and commercial success, hitting the bestseller lists and winning several literary awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Award for Fiction, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the 2017 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence. A TV miniseries adaptation, written and directed by Barry Jenkins, was released in May 2021. Plot The book alternates between the perspective of the lead character, Cora, and chapters told from a different character's perspective. The featured characters are: Ajarry, Cora's grandmother; Ridgeway, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Little Life
''A Little Life'' is a 2015 novel by American writer Hanya Yanagihara. Despite its length and difficult subject matters, it became a critically acclaimed best seller. Structure ''A Little Life'' follows a chronological narrative with flashbacks frequently interspersed throughout. The novel's narrative perspectives shift throughout the story's progression. During the beginning of the novel, a third-person omniscient perspective privileging the thoughts of Jude, Willem, JB and Malcolm is employed. As the story gradually shifts its focus towards Jude, its perspective progressively molds entirely around each character's interactions with Jude and the experiences of Jude himself. This literary perspective is punctuated by first-person narratives told by an older Harold, nine years in the future. The book is divided into seven parts: Plot summary The novel focuses on the lives of four friends: Jude St. Francis, a disabled genius with a mysterious past; Willem Ragnarsson, a kind, han ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Book Of Aron
''The Book of Aron'' is a historical fiction novel by Jim Shepard, published May 12, 2015 by Knopf Publishing Group. Reception ''The Book of Aron'' received starred reviews from ''Kirkus,'' ''Library Journal,'' ''Shelf Awareness'', and ''Booklist'', as well as positive reviews from ''The Guardian,'' ''The Boston Globe,'' ''The New York Times Book Review,'' ''The Washington Post'', NPR, ''The Seattle Times,'' ''The Toronto Star'', and the Jewish Book Council. Writing for ''Booklist'', Donna Seaman noted, "Shepard’s magnificent tour de force will hold a prominent place in the literature of compassionate outrage." ''Library Journal'''s Patrick Sullivan wrote, "Surrounded by devastation, hopelessness, and cruelty, he main characterbecomes an exemplar of all that is good and decent in the human spirit. Few will be able to read the last terrible, inspiring pages without tears in their eyes." ''Publishers Weekly'' provided a mixed review stating, "Shepard is a master with a light ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sympathizer
''The Sympathizer'' is the 2015 debut novel by Vietnamese-American professor Viet Thanh Nguyen. It is a best-selling novel and recipient of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The novel received generally positive acclaim from critics, and it was named a ''New York Times'' Editor's Choice. The novel incorporates elements from a number of different novel genres: immigrant, mystery, political, metafiction, dark comedic, historical, spy, and war. The story depicts the anonymous narrator, a North Vietnamese mole in the South Vietnamese army, who stays embedded in a South Vietnamese community in exile in the United States. While in the United States, the narrator describes being an expatriate and a cultural advisor on the filming of an American film, closely resembling ''Platoon'' and ''Apocalypse Now'', before returning to Vietnam as part of a guerrilla raid against the communists. The dual identity of the narrator, as a mole and immigrant, and the Americanization of the Vietn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
