Campaign Begins to Select the Best of the National Book Awards Fiction

On July 7, the National Book Foundation launched a new campaign celebrating the 60th anniversary of the National Book Awards that will culminate in a vote by the public this fall to choose the Best of the National Book Awards Fiction. To spread the word, and to highlight past winners, the National Book Foundation has created a book-a-day blog, featuring all of the fiction winners from 1950 to 2008. ABA members will be able to promote the vote as well as sales with a special edition poster featuring original jacket images, author photos, and a complete list of winners that will be sent to stores in an upcoming Red Box mailing.

Six finalists for the Best of the National Books Awards Fiction will be chosen in balloting by writers connected to the National Book Foundation and announced on September 15. The ballot includes 77 past National Book Award Fiction winners (from 1973 until 1985 there were sometimes multiple fiction categories or two winners in the same category). The shortlist of finalists will then be presented for a vote by the public between September 21 and October 13 via the Foundation's website, www.nationalbook.org.

The book-a-day blog, which runs from July 7 to September 21, started with Nelson Algren's The Man With the Golden Arm and will end with Peter Matthiessen's Shadow Country. It includes works by Ralph Ellison, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty, and Alice McDermott and thumbnails of all 77 titles with personal notes by writers, and "This Year in Literature" information.

Members of the public who cast their votes (one vote per e-mail address) will have a chance to win two tickets to the November 18, 2009 National Book Awards Ceremony and Dinner and a two-night stay at the Marriott Hotel near Wall Street in New York City.

Additional resources available to promote the Best of the National Book Awards include RSS Feeds, e-blasts, a Facebook Fanpage, and a Twitter feed. Booksellers can also request a poster from Mark Nichols, ABA's senior director of publisher initiatives at [email protected]. For more information, visit www.nationalbook.org. --Karen Schechner