National Book Award vote and mini-challenge!

Do you follow the National Book Awards?  Have you ever quarreled with the Foundation’s choices?  (I have!)  Well, now you can help choose the best National Book Award-winning novel ever!  The National Book Foundation is recognizing their 60th anniversary with a one-time “Best of the National Book Awards Fiction” celebration.  Over the years, 77 works of fiction have been honored by the Foundation, and starting today through September 21, they are posting a Book-A-Day Blog highlighting each book with personal reflections by various writers.  Meanwhile, Foundation members are nominating their favorites for the “Best of” award, and on September 21, the Foundation will post the top 6 nominations and open up the voting to the public!  Votes will be cast by email address, with each unique address being entered into a drawing for a pair of free tickets to this year’s awards dinner plus hotel accommodations in NYC.

In light of all this National Book Award talk, I thought it would be fun to host a related mini-challenge.  Looking over their list, I realize I’ve only read a few of the fiction titles that have garnered this award — but it turns out I have a couple in my TBR stack!  So I’m challenging myself to read two of them by September 21, the date the Foundation opens up the voting for “Best of.”  I’ll be reading Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News (won 1993) and Shirley Hazzard’s The Great Fire (won 2003).

Want to join me?  Simply go to this list of National Book Award Fiction-winning titles, select 1 or 2 (or more if you’re up for it!) to read by September 21, and leave a comment here identifying which book(s) you’re tackling.  I’ll compile a list of all participants with links to your blog, if you have one.  Then be sure to come back here and leave a link to your review(s) when you’re finished reading — because after the “deadline,” I’ll do a fun final round-up post. 

Give me a couple days to put together a challenge banner you can use in your posts.  Until then, look over the link and start making your selections.  I’m looking forward to seeing which books everyone wants to read!

UPDATE 8/16/09: I’ve now posted my review of Shirley Hazzard’s The Great Fire.  Let’s just say I loved it! And I’m currently reading Proulx, so on target to have both of them reviewed by the time voting opens.

07. July 2009 by Mindy
Categories: Challenges, Your turn | 4 comments