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National Book Award Winners Announced - Books Available at Ohio County Public Library

Posted 11/17/22

Winners of the National Book Award were announced at a live ceremony on Wednesday, November 16th in New York City. The Rabbit Hutch, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, All My Rage, Seven Empty Houses, and Punks: New & Selected Poems were all winners in their respective categories. The categories included fiction, non-fiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people's literature. Twenty-five finalists had previously been announced.

Neil Gaimon (The Sandman) presented MAUS author Art Spiegelman with the 2022 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. MAUS was recognized at the Ohio County Public Library as part of Banned Books Week. A panel discussion was held at Lunch with Books regarding the book. Additionally, two Graphic Novel Book Discussion Group meetings were held to discuss the groundbreaking graphic novel. Award ceremony host Padma Lakshmi addressed book banning issues across the country during the event.

The Ohio County Public Library collection includes many current and former National Book Award winners for you to enjoy. Additionally, hoopla has curated a list of past winners that are available for you to enjoy digitally. These past winners include Stamped from the Beginning, The Worst Hard Time, Just Kids, The Poet X, and more. Click Here to explore the full National Book Award Winner collection from hoopla.

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The Rabbit Hutch
by Gunty, Tess

Summary: NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST * The standout literary debut that everyone is talking about * "Inventive, heartbreaking and acutely funny."--The Guardian

Blandine isn't like the other residents of her building.

An online obituary writer. A young mother with a dark secret. A woman waging a solo campaign against rodents -- neighbors, separated only by the thin walls of a low-cost housing complex in the once bustling industrial center of Vacca Vale, Indiana.

Welcome to the Rabbit Hutch.

Ethereally beautiful and formidably intelligent, Blandine shares her apartment with three teenage boys she neither likes nor understands, all, like her, now aged out of the state foster care system that has repeatedly failed them, all searching for meaning in their lives.

Set over one sweltering week in July and culminating in a bizarre act of violence that finally changes everything, The Rabbit Hutch is a savagely beautiful and bitingly funny snapshot of contemporary America, a gorgeous and provocative tale of loneliness and longing, entrapment and, ultimately, freedom.

"Gunty writes with a keen, sensitive eye about all manner of intimacies―the kind we build with other people, and the kind we cultivate around ourselves and our tenuous, private aspirations."--Raven Leilani, author of Luster

CHECK OUT NOW FROM LIBBY - WV DELI

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South to America : A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
by Perry, Imani

Summary: FINALIST FOR THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"An elegant meditation on the complexities of the American South--and thus of America--by an esteemed daughter of the South and one of the great intellectuals of our time. An inspiration." --Isabel Wilkerson

An essential, surprising journey through the history, rituals, and landscapes of the American South--and a revelatory argument for why you must understand the South in order to understand America

We all think we know the South. Even those who have never lived there can rattle off a list of signifiers: the Civil War, Gone with the Wind, the Ku Klux Klan, plantations, football, Jim Crow, slavery. But the idiosyncrasies, dispositions, and habits of the region are stranger and more complex than much of the country tends to acknowledge. In South to America, Imani Perry shows that the meaning of American is inextricably linked with the South, and that our understanding of its history and culture is the key to understanding the nation as a whole.

This is the story of a Black woman and native Alabaman returning to the region she has always called home and considering it with fresh eyes. Her journey is full of detours, deep dives, and surprising encounters with places and people. She renders Southerners from all walks of life with sensitivity and honesty, sharing her thoughts about a troubling history and the ritual humiliations and joys that characterize so much of Southern life.

Weaving together stories of immigrant communities, contemporary artists, exploitative opportunists, enslaved peoples, unsung heroes, her own ancestors, and her lived experiences, Imani Perry crafts a tapestry unlike any other. With uncommon insight and breathtaking clarity, South to America offers an assertion that if we want to build a more humane future for the United States, we must center our concern below the Mason-Dixon Line.  

A Recommended Read from: The New Yorker * The New York Times * TIME * Oprah Daily * USA Today * Vulture * Essence * Esquire * W Magazine * Atlanta Journal-Constitution * PopSugar * Book Riot * Chicago Review of Books * Electric Literature * Lit Hub

CHECK OUT NOW FROM LIBBY - WV DELI

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All My Rage
by Tahir, Sabaa

Summary: National Book Award FINALIST
An INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!
An INSTANT INDIE BESTSELLER!

"All My Rage is a love story, a tragedy and an infectious teenage fever dream about what home means when you feel you don't fit in." -- New York Times Book Review

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Sabaa Tahir comes a brilliant, unforgettable, and heart-wrenching contemporary novel about family and forgiveness, love and loss, in a sweeping story that crosses generations and continents.

Lahore, Pakistan. Then.
Misbah is a dreamer and storyteller, newly married to Toufiq in an arranged match. After their young life is shaken by tragedy, they come to the United States and open the Clouds' Rest Inn Motel, hoping for a new start.
 
Juniper, California. Now.
Salahudin and Noor are more than best friends; they are family. Growing up as outcasts in the small desert town of Juniper, California, they understand each other the way no one else does. Until The Fight, which destroys their bond with the swift fury of a star exploding.  
 
Now, Sal scrambles to run the family motel as his mother Misbah's health fails and his grieving father loses himself to alcoholism. Noor, meanwhile, walks a harrowing tightrope: working at her wrathful uncle's liquor store while hiding the fact that she's applying to college so she can escape him--and Juniper--forever.
 
When Sal's attempts to save the motel spiral out of control, he and Noor must ask themselves what friendship is worth--and what it takes to defeat the monsters in their pasts and the ones in their midst.  
 
From one of today's most cherished and bestselling young adult authors comes a breathtaking novel of young love, old regrets, and forgiveness--one that's both tragic and poignant in its tender ferocity.

CHECK OUT NOW FROM LIBBY - WV DELI

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