Pour la première fois, la National Book Foundation a annoncé simultanément les quatre sélections – romans, essais, jeunesse, poésie -, composée de dix titres chacune, en vue des 67
e National Book Awards. L’ultime sélection sera dévoilée le 13 octobre tandis que les prestigieux prix littéraires américains seront remis le 16 novembre lors d’une grande cérémonie à New York.
Les dix romans concourant pour le prix :
- The Throwback Special, de Chris Bachelder (Norton) ;
- What Belongs to You, de Garth Greenwell (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) ;
- Imagine Me Gone, d'Adam Haslett (Little, Brown) ;
- News of the World, de Paulette Jiles (Morrow) ;
- The Association of Small Boms, de Karan Mahajan (Viking) ;
- The Portable Veblen, d'Elizabeth McKenzie (Penguin Press) ;
- Sweet Lamb of Heaven, de Lydia Millet (Norton) ;
- Miss Jane, de Brad Watson (Norton) ;
- The Underground Railroad, de Colson Whitehead (Doubleday) ;
- Another Brooklyn, de Jacqueline Woodson (Amistad).
Les dix essais :
- America's War fort the Greter Middle Est. A Military History, d'Andrew J. Bacevich (Random House) ;
- The Firebrand and The First Lady. Portrait of a friendship : Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt and the Struggle for Social Justice, de Patricia Bell-Scott (Knopf) ;
- Imbeciles. The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck, d'Adam Cohen (Penguin Press) ;
- Strangers in Their Own Land. Anger dans Mourning on the American Right, d'Arlie Russell Hochschild (New Press) ;
- Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, d'Ibram X. Kendi (Nation) ;
- Nothing Ever Dies.Vietnam and the Memory of War, de Viet Thanh Nguyen (Harvard Univ.) ;
- Weapons of Math Destruction, de Cathy O’Neil (Crown) ;
- The Other Slavery. The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America, d'Andrés Reséndez (HMH) ;
- The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition, de Manisha Sinha (Yale Univ.) ;
- Blood in the Water. The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy, d'Heather Ann Thompson (Pantheon).
Les dix romans jeunesse :
- Booked, de Kwame Alexander (HMH) ;
- Raymie Nightingale, de Kate DiCamillo (Candlewick) ;
- March. Book Three, de John Lewis et Andrew Aydin, illustré par Nate Powell (Top Shelf) ;
- When the Sea Turned to Silver, de Grace Lin (Little, Brown) ;
- When the Moon Was Ours, d'Anna-Marie McLemore (St. Martin’s/Thomas Dunne) ;
- Burn Baby Burn, de Meg Medina (Candlewick) ;
- Pax, de Sara Pennypacker, illustré par Jon Klassen (HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray) ;
- Ghost, de Jason Reynolds (Atheneum) ;
- Sachiko. A Nagasaki Bomb Survivor's Story, de Caren Stelson (Lerner/Carolrhoda) ;
- The Sun Is Also a Star, de Nicola Yoon (Delacorte).
Les dix recueils de poésie
- The Performance of Becoming Human, de Daniel Borzutzky (Brooklyn Arts Press) ;
- Collected Poems 1974-2004, de Rita Dove (Norton) ;
- Archeophonics, de Peter Gizzi (Wesleyan) ;
- The Selected Poems of Donald Hall, de Donald Hall (HMH) ;
- The Abridged History of Rainfall, de Jay Hopler (McSweeney's) ;
- Bestiary, de Donika Kelly (Graywolf) ;
- World of Made and Unmade, de Jane Mead (Alice James) ;
- Look, de Solmaz Sharif (Graywolf) ;
- Blackacre, de Monica Youn (Graywolf) ;
- Blue Laws, de Kevin Young (Knopf).