National Book Critics Circle announces 2009 finalists

"On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the National Book Critics Circle announced the finalists for its book awards for the publishing year 2009 at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe in New York. The fiction finalists, announced by 2008 finalist Elizabeth Strout, included this year's Man Booker Award winner, Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall (Holt), as well as Bonnie Jo Campbell's 2009 National Book Award finalist, American Salvage (Wayne State University Press), and Jayne Anne Phillips NBA finalist Lark and Termite (Knopf). The autobiography finalists, announced by 2008 autobiography winner Ariel Sabar, included Lit (Harper) by Mary Karr, author of The Liar's Club, a formative book in the memoir genre, and Kati Marton's Enemies of the People: My Family's Journey to America (Simon & Schuster), in which the author used her reporter's skills to uncover the story of her parents in Budapest during the Nazi and Communist eras. Biography, announced by 1999 finalist Jean Strouse, included works about writers John Cheever, Clarice Lispector, Flannery O'Connor, Ignazio Silone"