My friend Avideh Bashirrad at Random House sent me the galley of LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN, and because I always put her recommendations on the top of the stack, I read it—and my world was spinning.  In July, it was our featured book on  our LiteraryMatters website. 

Prediction for next year’s National Book Award for Nonfiction:  LET’S TAKE THE LONG WAY HOME, a magnificent memoir by Gail Caldwell.  Watch for it in August, 2010; I’ll send you all a reminder so that you can  pre-order it.

Last night, the National Book Awards were presented at a black-tie dinner at Cipriani Wall Street in Manhattan.

The winners:
Fiction: Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann (Random House)
Nonfiction: The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T. J. Stiles (Knopf)
Young people's literature: Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose (FSG)
Poetry: Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy by Keith Waldrop (University of California Press)