2012 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction!

Congratulations to Anne Enright and Robert K. Massie, the 2012 Winners!

On Monday, at the American Library Association’s Annual Conference in Anaheim, California, Anne Enright and Robert K. Massie became the very first authors to be honored with the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction. Anne Enright’s The Forgotten Waltz (2011) received the medal for fiction and Robert K. Massie’s Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman (2011) received the nonfiction prize.

This marks the first time that ALA, well known for its youth awards, has offered single-book awards for adult trade fiction and nonfiction. The medals recognize the best books for adult readers published the previous year in the United States and are cosponsored by Booklist and the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) of ALA. The awards are funded through a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York.

In Enright’s The Forgotten Waltz (2011), the vicissitudes of extramarital love and the obstructions to its smooth flow—including spouses, children, and the necessary secrecy surrounding an affair—are charted in sharp yet supple prose. In a year without a Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, this award becomes even more meaningful for the literary community.

Massie’s Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman (2011) is a compulsively readable biography of the fascinating woman who, through a combination of luck, personality, and a fine mind, rose from her birth as a minor German princess to become the empress of all the Russias.

In addition to the medals, Enright and Massie both received $5,000, and each finalist received $1,500. Fiction finalists include Russell Banks’ Lost Memory of Skin (2011) and Karen Russell’s Swamplandia! (2011). Nonfiction finalists include James Gleick’s The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood (2011) and Manning Marable’s Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (2011).

More information about the awards, including video from the awards ceremony will be available soon on the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction & Nonfiction website.

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The Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction winners and finalists were selected based on the expert judgment and insight of library professionals who work closely with adult readers.

The members of the 2012 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction inaugural selection committee were: Chair, Nancy Pearl; Brad Hooper, editor, Adult Books, Booklist, Chicago; Danise Hoover, associate librarian, Public Services, Hunter College Library, New York; A. Issac Pulver, director, Saratoga Springs (NY) Public Library; Nonny Schlotzhauer, librarian, Collection Development/Social Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA; Donna Seaman, senior editor, Adult Books, Booklist, Chicago; and Rebecca Vnuk, editor, Reference and Collection Management, Booklist, Chicago.

Reprinted from @yourlibrary

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