They've now announced all the longlists for this year's (American) National Book Awards, the ten-title-strong fiction longlist (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) the last to be revealed.
The fiction finalists were selected from 419 submissions (which, disappointingly and outrageously -- if very predictably -- are not revealed (so we never find out what worthy titles weren't submitted by their publishers, and hence weren't even in the running ...)) -- still, less than 494 non-fiction submissions (but more than the 221 poetry titles and 294 ' Young People's' titles considered for those categories).
Predictably, too, none of these titles are under review at the complete review; indeed, I haven't seen a one of them. As usual, I am a bit disturbed by my disconnect from the contemporary American literary scene; sure, this establishment-approved selection is hardly fully representative, but still ..... But I think the reason behind it is less a lack of interest in American writing than a focus that isn't on the truly current: sure, most of the books reviewed at the site are books in translation -- but few of these originally appeared this year, or last year, or the year before, etc. I'm simply not very up-to-date -- and the focus at the site will certainly never be to try to be that.
The fiction finalists were selected from 419 submissions (which, disappointingly and outrageously -- if very predictably -- are not revealed (so we never find out what worthy titles weren't submitted by their publishers, and hence weren't even in the running ...)) -- still, less than 494 non-fiction submissions (but more than the 221 poetry titles and 294 ' Young People's' titles considered for those categories).
Predictably, too, none of these titles are under review at the complete review; indeed, I haven't seen a one of them. As usual, I am a bit disturbed by my disconnect from the contemporary American literary scene; sure, this establishment-approved selection is hardly fully representative, but still ..... But I think the reason behind it is less a lack of interest in American writing than a focus that isn't on the truly current: sure, most of the books reviewed at the site are books in translation -- but few of these originally appeared this year, or last year, or the year before, etc. I'm simply not very up-to-date -- and the focus at the site will certainly never be to try to be that.