And the choices are great, if unsurprising. Ta-Nehisi Coates’s blockbuster Between the World and Me made the Art of the Essay shortlist, alongside Renata Adler’s After the Tall Timber, and Marilynne Robinson’s The Givenness of Things. David L. Ulin’s Sidewalking and Susan Howe’s The Quarry round out the category.
The Literary Science Writing Award seems to reflect our current love of all things weather, with Rain by Cynthia Barnett, Thunder & Lightening by Lauren Redniss, and Island on Fire by Alexandra Witze and Jeff Kanipe making the cut.
The biographies range from literary—Deborah Lutz on the Brontë sisters and Adam Sisman on John le Carré—to political, with Peter Slevin’s Michelle Obama and Rosemary Sullivan on Stalin’s Daughter.
The Complete Stories by Clarice Lispector topped the Translation category, followed by The Blizzard by Vladimir Sorokin and yet another translation of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment.