Criticism Is Where It's At [NBCC Awards]

This weekend, the National Book Critics Circle announced the finalists for its books wards for publishing 2011 and—not to bury the lede—including Dubravka Ugresic’s Karaoke Culture as one of the five finalists in the Criticism category.

This is the first major book award that one of our titles has been nominated for (not counting the BTBA), and we’re extremely psyched. I’ve been on and on and on about this book for the past year, which makes this news just that much sweeter. To celebrate this honor, we’re selling copies of Karaoke Culture through our website for the special price of $9.99.

OR, if you’d rather become an Open Letter supporter and receive all of our fantastic books, you can buy a subscription and we’ll throw in a copy of Karaoke Culture for free.

Going back to the NBCCs, I have to say, the Criticism category is the very definition of LOADED. Check out this list of finalists:

• David Bellos, Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything (Faber & Faber)

• Geoff Dyer, Otherwise Known as the Human Condition: Selected Essays and Reviews (Graywolf)

• Jonathan Lethem, The Ecstasy of Influence (Doubleday)

• Dubravka Ugresic, Karaoke Culture (Open Letter) (Translated by David Williams, Ellen Elias-Bursac, and Celia Hawkesworth)

• Ellen Willis, Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music (University of Minnesota Press)

Bellos, Lethem, Ugresic, AND Dyer?!?!? Damn. That’s all I can say.

By contrast, the other categories—all of which contain a few truly excellent books—seem tame. You can read the full press release and list of all finalists by clicking here. And here are my picks for which titles should win in the various categories:

Fiction:

• Teju Cole, Open City (Random House)

Nonfiction:

• James Gleick, The Information (Pantheon)

Autobiography:

• Deb Olin Unferth, Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War (Henry Holt)

Biography:

• Mary Gabriel, Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of the Revolution (Little, Brown)

Poetry:

• Forrest Gander, Core Samples from the World (New Directions)

Congrats to everyone, and special congrats to Dubravka Ugresic, David Williams, Ellen Elias-Bursac, and Celia Hawkesworth!