What a night!  Not one, but TWO National Book Awards for Random House, Inc. authors!  Just wanted to give a little shout out of congratulations to our honored authors:

LET THE GREAT WORLD SPINby Colum McCann (Random House) received the 2009 National Book Award for Fiction right after THE FIRST TYCOON: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T. J. Stiles (Knopf) was announced as the Nonfiction winner.

A thrilling night for our authors, as well as for us. 

And we just got the news today that a trade paperback edition of LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN  is being rushed to press and will be available on 12/08/09.  Perfect to help meet the surge in demand.

It was announced last night that Peter Matthiessen has won the 2008 National Book Award for fiction with Shadow Country. We would like to congratulate Mr. Matthiessen on his wonderful accomplishment. Here is some praise he has recieved for this book:

“This magnificent, sad masterpiece about race, history, and defeated dreams can easily stand comparison with Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men. Little wonder, too, that parts of the story of E.J. Watson call up comparisons with Dostoevsky, Conrad, and, inevitably, Faulkner. In every way, Shadow Country is a bravura performance, at once history, fiction, and myth–as well as the capstone to the career of one of the most admired and admirable writers of our time.” — The New York Review of Books

“Gorgeously written and unfailingly compelling, Shadow Country is the exhilarating masterwork of [Matthiessen’s] career, every bit as ambitious as Moby Dick.” — National Geographic Adventure magazine

“Matthiessen’s Watson trilogy is a touchstone of modern American literature…this reworking…is remarkable….Where Watson was a magnificent character before, he comes across as nothing short of iconic here; it’s difficult to find another figure in American literature so thoroughly and confincingly portrayed.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review, Pick of the Week

We’re thrilled to announce that Random House, Inc has four National Book Award Finalists among our lists.

Fiction Finalist: Shadow Country, by Peter Matthiessen (Modern Library/Random House Pub Group)

Nonfiction Finalists: This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, by Drew Gilpin Faust (Alfred A. Knopf) and The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on America, by Jane Mayer (Doubleday)

Young People’s Literature: The Spectacular Now, by Tim Tharp (Knopf Books for Young Readers)

Also, Knopf/Vintage author Maxine Hong Kingston will be honored with the 2008 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters at the awards dinner on Wednesday, November 19th.

Congratulations to our authors and their publishers and editors! 

For a complete list of National Book Award Finalists click HERE.

–Jen