National Book Award for Fiction 2021 Winner Reaction

hello and welcome back to supposedly fun my name is greg i am here today to react to the 2021 winner of the national book award for fiction i am pretty specifically going to be talking about fiction although i will talk about the winners in two other categories specifically young people's literature and non-fiction because i thought the winners in both of those categories sounded really interesting but we'll get to those much much later in this i did not get a chance to film a reaction video last night when the winter was announced because you know life and they announced them at 5 p.m my time and i was on the phone didn't get to watch the ceremony and uh worked a little bit later so i did just it didn't happen so i'm recording now in the morning my time so you could have coffee with me how exciting is that for you because what are mornings without coffee now let's get right into it this was a bit of a surprise for me although i feel like now that it's been announced it shouldn't really be a surprise the winner of the 2021 national book award for fiction was hell of a book by jason mott this in my sort of prediction video that i did in a friday reads which i will link in the description box down below i talked about how this seemed like the dark horse a lot of people who have commented on my videos about the national book award this year have loved this book i think maybe one person was a little iffy on it but it does feel like anybody who has read this book has loved it it was possibly the least known of any of the finalists and the national book award does like to reward sort of quirky books but they also really like to reward lesser-known authors and jason mott really fit that bill and i had kind of thought that maybe they would go with laird hunt for zory instead if they wanted to elevate an un relatively unknown author but lairdhound is more known than jason mott i believe and so they went with the really unknown one and the more i thought about it the more it seemed like hell of a book was a dark horse contender and clearly it was clearly it won in hindsight it makes sense i am sad for two of the finalists the two that i read but we'll talk about them in a little bit it seems like this is a really good win just based on feedback that i've gotten from it it sounds like a really interesting book i am going to have to look for this from the library i don't believe it's on scribd or libby so i'm gonna have to get on a hold list at my library and see what happens if you are unfamiliar let's take a look at the plot description on the national book award site by the way i will put a link to the whole ceremony which is on the national book awards website in the description box down below if you'd like to watch it is a long ceremony but you you know you can skip to the parts that you like that's what i did this morning i skipped to the announcement of some of the awards i didn't watch all of them being honest but i watched the young people's literature announcement parts of the nonfiction and uh definitely the fiction announcement but let's do what they say about hell of a book on their website with audacity and invention jason mott's hell of a book weaves together three narrative strands an unnamed author a boy named soot and a figure known as the kid into a masterful novel in a structurally and conceptually daring examination of art fame family and being black in america mott somehow manages the impossible trick of being playful insightful and deeply moving all at the same time a highly original inspired work that breaks new ground i feel like especially since charles you won the national book award for fiction last year for interior chinatown if i had been thinking in that vein it seems even more like a hell of a book should have been a sure thing but the thing is the jury changes every year there's a different chair this year charles you was actually one of the people who was on the panel to decide the winner so tastes can change and fluctuate year by year you can't really say well this one last year so this is what will correlate best to that it doesn't always work but this year it does seem like there's a bit of a through lamp now i did read interior chinatown and i did not end up liking it but i feel like interior chinatown doesn't have the universal love that hell of a book has gotten so far maybe that will change now that more people are going to hopefully discover hell of a book through this award but i feel like even before it won interior chinatown was sort of swimming against the tide of the sort of mixed response some people were saying like i didn't get it and some people were saying oh i loved it hell of a book seems much more universal in terms of what it's about just a quick blurb in jason matt's hell of a book a black author sets out on a cross-country publicity tour to promote his best-selling novel that storyline drives hell of a book and is the scaffolding of something much larger and urgent since matt's novel also tells the story of soot a young black boy living in a rural town in the recent past and the kid a possibly imaginary child who appears to the author on his tour as these stories build and converge they astonish for while this heartbreaking and magical book entertains and is at once about family love of parents and children art and money it is also about the nation's reckoning with a tragic police shooting playing over and over again on the news and with what it can mean to be black in america and that certainly seems like an unfortunately timely message so again it feels like i shouldn't i i got emotionally involved in the two finalists that i had read and maybe that means i was sleeping on hell of a book a little bit but because it's one it is one of those things where in hindsight it seems like of course that book won of course it did why did i think it was an underdog i mean it was because like i said jason mott is probably the least known author on the finalist list and he was against two wildly best-selling books one by a former winner of the pulitzer prize so there was heavy competition so let's talk about the other finalists just briefly i mentioned that i was really rooting for two different books and i couldn't decide which one but now i'm going to try to read hell of a book i don't know if i'll get to it this year it depends on how long the whole list is at the library and bandwidth for the end of the year so we'll see how that goes but the profits by robert jones jr was a finalist and i really loved this book i would have loved to have seen it one but i think the finalists were strong enough that really any book could have won and i wouldn't have been disappointed this would have been a great winner but jason mott gave a great speech i really appreciated what he's had to say and i think it's from without having read it it seems like hell of a book is a worthy winner as well it feels like the prophets hasn't gotten a lot of universal support i personally loved it i know a lot of other people who have loved it but it does feel like there are some mixed responses out there so i guess i can see where it wouldn't have won i personally love it and i think it's great it would have been a worthy winner and we'll see what happens i mean it got overlooked for the booker prize and a lot of other major awards this year the pulitzer is still out there i would say it could be a contender for that we'll have to wait and see i feel like in terms of contenders for the pulitzer prize obviously hell of a book has to go in there as well but zory by laird hunt feels like something that the pulitzer would go for they tend to like small quiet books with a sort of elegant grace to them and that is sorry to a t i really loved this book as well it would certainly fit in with some of the smaller graceful pulitzer winners like gilead by marilyn robinson tinkers by paul harding it could very well be a contender there but we're months away from that decision so i'm not going to get too far ahead of myself but i think this would have been another worthy winner it seems like there are a lot of really great finalists for the national book award for fiction this year that could have won maybe any other year the two finalists that i have not read are cloud cuckoo land by anthony dorr which has gotten a little bit of a mixed reaction it's a seems like a bit of a quirky book which like i said the national book award can go for so it felt like it could be it could have had an edge if the jury had been looking to reward a popular author but that is not the direction they ended up going but because it is quirky it does feel like there have been people who have said it's the best thing they read this year and there have been people who said it was a little weird so i don't know where i fall on it i am on a hold list for cloud cuckoo land i did decide to do that but we'll see what happens i don't know that i will get to it this year it's probably gonna be something i'll get to next year and the other one was lauren groff's matrix this was the only finalist that was by a female author which is not great and when you look at the long list there are some books by women that could have been contenders i think it goes to show that this really has been a strong year for fiction i don't think the national book award foundation is an organization that overlooks women or minorities i don't think that this is something that's likely to repeat that they only have one female finalist who doesn't end up winning but it will be interesting to follow and i i understand the concern about it but given their history of celebration of diversity i'm not very worried about it this isn't like an oscar's so white type situation at least not yet we'll have to see what happens next year and moving forward if it's if it's trend that continues it will be worrisome but right now i'm not i'm not overly bent out of shape about it and again that is not to dismiss the concerns that people have about the fact that only one woman made the short list for the national book award for fiction this year i just think given the history of the national book foundation's celebration of diversity it's not a problem yet something to watch for and monitor but for all we know right now it could be a blip anyway i am very interested in reading lauren groff's matrix it sounds like a really good book i've gotten some interesting and good feedback on it as well i am on a hold list for that at the library we'll see when it becomes available that is another one that i am likely to get to next year probably based on when the hold will be available and what my reading life is going to look like over the next month as we close out 2021 can you believe we're closing out 2021 that is wild and looking at the long list that they produced for the national book award for fiction this year the one that jumps out the most as something that could have easily made the shortlist is the love songs of w e b du bois by honorary fanon jeffers that is a book that i i think is going to be showing up in best of lists we should be getting into best of lists right about now the new york times will be coming at the end of the month so i feel like that's a book we're gonna be seeing pop up a lot and it could have easily taken a spot in the finalists the only one that i would point to and say maybe i would swap out is cloud cuckooland just because i'm still iffy on whether or not i'm going to like that book or if i want to read that book so sight unseen haven't read either one of them that is probably one that i would have swapped for a different book not because it was written by a female writer but because i've heard really great things about it i'm really excited to read it and that maybe would have balanced out the list of finalists a little bit better mostly i just think it's great that we are having these conversations about diversity in writing and authors and representation and i think in that regard it is probably a good thing as well that hell of a book did end up winning and i'm looking forward to reading it let's talk about two of the other winners and somebody mentioned in a comment recently last night at the telegraph club by melinda lowe and i had completely forgotten in all of my slumpiness lately that i had put a hold on the audio of that on libby and after it won i opened the libby app and somehow the audiobook is in there it's available for me right now and there are only two days left on my hold and i can't extend my hold because there are other people waiting for it so that timing is not great and i can't believe i missed that somehow and all my reading slumpiness that i've been going through so that is a book i am absolutely looking to read since the audio is about to expire and i have to get back on the whole list because i'm i started a different audiobook so i don't think i'll be able to get to last night at the telegraph club before it expires i'm probably going to look to order a copy because melinda lowe by the way gave a great speech at the end of it she talked about the importance of diversity in books and how when she published her first book there were only 27 queer books that were published in the young adult market at that time and now there were hundreds that were produced and published this year alone and that representation is great but it is also under threat and people are clamoring to ban books and hide them away and censor them so she talked about how important it is to celebrate that diversity and i want to support that so i think this is a book i'm probably going to seek out and purchase a copy of so i need to call montana book company when they open and make sure i can get myself a copy of that because i think it's going to be fantastic just quickly to talk about the citation that they gave it on their site and a little bit of why i think this is such a fascinating book that i would love to read i've read a fair amount of lgbtqya books this year and they've been good i haven't read a bad one yet i'm sure there are bad ones out there but i haven't read a bad one yet here's the citation they gave last night at the telegraph club last night at the telegraph club glows with desire and hums with sensuality as sapphic romance flashes against fear and intolerance in lustrous detail melinda lowe materializes chinese american lily and white cath's love story during the rise of 1950's mccarthyism low's exquisite prose contrasts lily's unhurried discovery of her sexuality against cath's unquestioned belonging at the telegraph club loeb beckons readers sentenced by restrained sentence into this incandescent novel of queer possibility i mean sign me up i am so excited for this book i really want to read it i i i might try to get to the audio before the hold expires but i feel like i want to support the existence of this book by purchasing a copy as well so i don't know what i'm going to do yet the description of it that they gave is really short so let's take a look at it seventeen-year-old lily who can't remember exactly when the feeling took root that desire to look to move closer to touch whenever it started growing it definitely bloomed the moment she and kathleen miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the telegraph club suddenly everything seemed possible but america in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love especially not in chinatown red scare paranoia threatens everyone including chinese americans like lily with deportation looming over her father despite his hard-won citizenship lily and kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day again sign me up for this book so excited for it so excited can't wait and i want to talk about the nonfiction winner which is all that she carried the journey of ashley's sack a black family keepsake by tia miles tia had a great speech she talked about the importance of voting and getting booster shots and the book sounds really interesting the citation they gave it is a brilliant original work all that she carried presents a black woman's counter compilation of lives that ordinary archives suppress tia miles's graceful prose gives us narrative history social history and object history of women women's craft through the things rose gave the daughter she was losing forever with depth and breadth miles offers the visual record of love in the face of the child trafficking atrocities of slavery this book is scholarship at its best and most heart rending and i'm not going to do the whole description of it because they have a really long description but just the first part of it in 1850s south carolina an enslaved woman named rose faces a crisis the imminent sale of her daughter ashley thinking quickly she packed a cotton bag with a few precious items as a token of love and to try to ensure ashley's survival soon after the nine-year-old girl was separated from her mother and sold decades later ashley's granddaughter ruth embroidered this family history on the bag in spare yet haunting language including rose's wish that it'd be filled with my love always ruth's own words the reason we remember ashley sack today evoke a sweeping family history of loss and love passed down through generations that sounds amazing and i will not be surprised if we see that pop up on best of lists once they really start coming out because that just sounds fantastic so i'm gonna have to be looking for a copy of that that is probably something that i would do on audio so i will probably be looking for a copy on libby or scribd and seek it out that way i don't know if it's available on either of those sites if not maybe the library in 2022 but it sounds absolutely amazing so all in all i think this is a good year for the national book award i am not going to really talk about the winner for translated literature because i'm not familiar with a lot of the books that were in there and i'm not going to talk about poetry because that is my weak spot as a reader and i don't feel super qualified to say anything about the books that were up for it and the book that won but i would love to hear what you think i'm i'm excited for hell of a book even though i haven't read it because i've just heard so many good things about it and i think it was a really great long list and a great short list you can quibble with some of the books and some of the representation but i think all in all this was a good year for the national book foundation and i'm excited for the winner i'm excited to get to last night i'm really excited for last night at the telegraph club i don't know if you can tell really excited for that and i'm also excited for all that she carried because they just sound really fantastic and one reason i really love following book awards is this sense of discovery i hadn't paid attention to the nonfiction list so the fact that i caught a part of tia miles's speech is really what made me look at that book more closely and it sounds absolutely fascinating so i can't wait to get to it but i'd love to hear what you thought if you think what you think about the long list the short list if you would swap it any of the books out for a different book maybe a book by a woman let me know in the comment section down below if you're happy about this shout it out down below if you're mad on behalf of one of the other books let me know that as well as always i really appreciate your time and i will be back until next time happy reading i'm going back to coffee

Channel: Supposedly Fun

Views: 1,225

Keywords: Books, BookTube, Reading

Id: axEOfZs9hls

Length: 19min 47sec (1187 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 18 2021