Can’t We Just All Get a Long (List)?

Two quite different long lists of book prize contenders have been announced this week. First off, we have the rundown of nominees for the 2014 National Book Award for fiction, as reported by The New York Times:

• An Unnecessary Woman, by Rabih Alameddine (Grove Press)
• The UnAmericans, by Molly Antopol (Norton)
• Wolf in White Van, by John Darnielle (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr (Scribner)
• Redeployment, by Phil Klay (Penguin Press)
• Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel (Knopf)
• Thunderstruck & Other Stories, by Elizabeth McCracken (Dial Press)
• Orfeo, by Richard Powers (Norton)
• Lila, by Marilynne Robinson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Some Luck, by Jane Smiley (Knopf)

The Times adds that “Five finalists in four categories--young people’s literature, poetry, nonfiction and fiction--will be announced on Oct. 15, and the winners will be recognized at an awards gala on Nov. 19 that will be hosted by Daniel Handler, a.k.a Lemony Snicket.”

Meanwhile, The Rap Sheet brings word that the British Crime Writers’ Association has released its long list of nominees for the 2014 Dagger in the Library award, intended to honor “an author’s whole body of work to date, rather than a single title.” The contestants (chosen this year by readers voting online) are listed below, together with the names of their usual publishers:

• M.C. Beaton (Constable & Robinson)
• Tony Black (Black and White Publishing)
• Sharon Bolton (Transworld Publishers)
• Elly Griffiths (Quercus)
• Mari Hannah (Pan)
• James Oswald (Michael Joseph)
• Phil Rickman (Corvus)
• Leigh Russell (No Exit Press)
• Mel Sherratt (Thomas & Mercer)
• Neil White (Sphere)

A short list of Dagger in the Library nominees will be announced on November 3, with the winner slated to be revealed during an event in London in late November.

READ MORE: “What Do This Year’s Wildly Disparate National Book Award Longlists Mean?” by Elisabeth Donnelly (Flavorwire).