It’s awards season, and the nominations are coming fast and furious. I always enjoy reading the ballots to see what books I own, what books I haven’t even heard of, and what might be good to read.

The National Book Award nominees were announced today. I have two of the fiction candidates in signed first editions (Whoo-hoo! Bonanaza! Not that I’ll sell them, of course), and one of the nonfiction candidates.

Fiction
American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell
The Book of Night Women by Marlon James
Blame by Michelle Huneven
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips

Nonfiction
The Hindus: An Alternative History by Wendy Doniger
Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City by Greg Grandin
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes
Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder
Imperial by William T. Vollmann

Poetry
Versed by Rae Armantrout
A Village Life by Louise Gluck
Chronic by D.A. Powell
Captive Voices: New and Selected Poems, 1960-2008 by Eleanor Ross Taylor
Museum of Accidents by Rachel Zucker

Biography
Cheever: A Life by Blake Bailey
Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor by Brad Gooch
Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector by Benjamin Moser
Bitter Spring: A Life of Ignazio Silone by Stanislao G. Pugliese
Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line by Martha A. Sandweiss

Criticism
Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays by Eula Bliss
Close Calls with Nonsense: Reading New Poetry by Stephen Burt
Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression by Morris Dickstein
Heroes and Villains: Essays on Music, Movies, Comics, and Culture by David Hajdu
Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music by Greg Milner

The British Science Fiction Association has also announced its nominees for best novel. They are:

The City & The City by China Mieville
Ark by Stephen Baxter
Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts
Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin

(Other categories for the award can be found here.)

The Mystery Writers of America announced the nominees for the Edgars (i.e., the 2010 Edgar Allan Poe Awards) last week. I haven’t been reading as many mysteries as I used to, so it’s not much of a surprise to me (though it is a disappointment) that I don’t own any of these books. I note with pleasure that one book I named as one of my year’s best is a nominee for best novel: The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston. Purely as a matter of coincidence, I also have John Hart’s The Last Child and Stefanie Pintoff’s In the Shadow of Gotham in my current pile of library books. (There are other nominations for other forms of media here.

Best Novel
The Missing by Tim Gautreaux
The Odds by Kathleen George
The Last Child by John Hart
The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston
Nemesis by Jo Nesbø, translated by Don Bartlett
A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn

Best First Novel by an American Author
The Girl She Used to Be by David Cristofano
Starvation Lake by Bryan Gruley
The Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf
A Bad Day for Sorry by Sophie Littlefield
Black Water Rising by Attica Locke
In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff

Best Paperback Original
Bury Me Deep by Megan Abbott
Havana Lunar by Robert Arellano
The Lord God Bird by Russell Hill
Body Blows by Marc Strange
The Herring-Seller's Apprentice by L.C. Tyler

Best Critical/Biographical
Talking About Detective Fiction by P.D. James
The Lineup: The World's Greatest Crime Writers Tell the Inside Story of Their Greatest Detectives edited by Otto Penzler
Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King by Lisa Rogak
The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith by Joan Schenkar
The Stephen King Illustrated Companion by Bev Vincent

Best Fact Crime
Columbine by Dave Cullen
Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde by Jeff Guinn
The Fence: A Police Cover-up Along Boston's Racial Divide by Dick Lehr
Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo
Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa by R.A. Scotti

Best Young Adult
Reality Check by Peter Abrahams
If the Witness Lied by Caroline B. Cooney
The Morgue and Me by John C. Ford
Petronella Saves Nearly Everyone by Dene Low
Shadowed Summer by Saundra Mitchell

The Philip K. Dick Award nominees were announced two weeks ago, on January 16, 2010. I gathered up copies of all of these, and hope to read and review them all on this blog before the prize is awarded on April 2, 2010, at Norwescon 33. It’s tempting to think about going to the convention itself, but I have an arbitration starting about that time. Sometimes leading a double life as a lawyer and a book reviewer gets complicated!

Bitter Angels by C. L. Anderson
The Prisoner by Carlos J. Cortes
The Repossession Mambo by Eric Garcia
The Devil's Alphabet by Daryl Gregory
Cyberabad Days by Ian McDonald
Centuries Ago and Very Fast by Rebecca Ore
Prophets: Apotheosis: Book One by S. Andrew Swann

Anyone have any comments on any of these nominees?