According to the National Book Award website “The National Book Awards were established in 1950 to celebrate the best American writing in fiction, nonfiction and poetry.” Since 1989, the Awards have been overseen by the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to celebrate the best literature published in the United States, expand its audience, and ensure books have a prominent place in our culture. The winners will be revealed November 19.

Here are some of the finalists:

Fiction category

“The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)” by Rabih Alameddine

“A Guardian and a Thief” by Megha Majumbar

“The Antidote” by Karen Russell

“North Sun: Or, the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther” by Ethan Rutherford

“Palaver” by Bryan Washington

Nonfiction

“One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This” by Omar El Akkad

“Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy” by Julia Ioffe

“Things in Nature Merely Grow” by Yiyun Li

“Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care” by Claudia Rowe

“When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World” by Jordan Thomas

Rest assured, even if the book you choose from the list is a different genre from what you would normally enjoy, the expert crafting will make it worth the read.

If you’d like to request these or any other titles, visit www.newulmlibrary.org and choose Library Catalog, or call the library at 507-359-8331. New Ulm Public Library is located at 17 North Broadway and is open from 9:30 a.m.-8 p.m. on Monday-Thursday and 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. on Friday-Saturday. The library will close at 5 p.m. on November 26 and will be closed on Thursday, November 27 and Friday, November 28.