National Book Awards Challenge

This challenge is in honor of the National Book Foundation's 60th Anniversary of the National Book Award.

The Foundation will be celebrating the month of July with a blog (will link soon) paying tribute to the past award winners. The blog's tributes will be written by a select group of commentators composed of past Winners, Finalists, judges, and other prominent writers, editors, bloggers, librarians, booksellers, and critics.

Rachel from A Bohemian's Book Reviews and I are co-hosting this challenge.

Please head over to our National Book Awards Challenge site and sign up! You can also post a link to your reviews here.

Option 1: Bronze Medal
Read one book from the list between June 15th and December 31st.
Option 2: Silver Medal
Read three books from the list between June 15th and December 31st.
Option 3: Gold Medal
Read five books from the list between June 15th and December 31st.

Amanda's National Book Awards List
**Going for the Gold**
1. Europe Central - William T. Vollmann
2. Charming Billy - Alice McDermott (Finished June 23, 2009)
3. Cold Mountain - Charles Frazier (Finished July 3, 2009)
4. Three Junes - Julia Glass (Finished August 11, 2009)
5. Let the Great World Spin - Colum McCann (Finished May 25, 2009)


National Book Awards List
1950 The Man With the Golden Arm - Nelson Algren
1951 The Collected Stories of William Faulkner
1952 From Here to Eternity - James Jones
1953 Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
1954 The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow
1955 A Fable - William Faulkner

1956 Ten North Frederick - John O'Hara

1957 The Field of Vision - Wright Morris

1958 The Wapshot Chronicle - John Cheever

1959 The Magic Barrel - Bernard Malamud

1960 Goodbye Columbus - Philip Roth

1961 The Waters of Kronos - Conrad Richter

1962 The Moviegoer - Walker Percy

1963 Morte D'Urban - J.F. Powers

1964 The Centaur - John Updike

1965 Herzog - Saul Bellow

1966 The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter - Katherine Anne Porter

1967 The Fixer - Bernard Malamud

1968 The Eigth Day - Thornton Wilder

1969 Steps - Jerzy Kosinski

1970 Them - Joyce Carol Oates

1971 Mr. Sammler's Planet - Saul Bellow

1972 The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor - Flannery O'Connor

1973 Chimera - John Barth

1973 Augustus - John Williams

1974 Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon

1974 A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories - Isaac Bashevis Singer

1975 Dog Soldiers - Robert Stone

1975 The Hair of Harold Roux - Thomas Williams

1976 JR - William Gaddis

1977 The Spectator Bird - Wallace Stegner

1978 Blood Tie - Mary Lee Settle

1979 Going After Cacciato - Tim O'Brien

1980 Stained Glass - William F. Buckley, Jr.

1980 The World According to Garp - John Irving

1980 Bendigo Shafter - Louis L'Amour

1980 The Green Ripper - John D.Mac Donald

1980 Jem - Frederick Pohl

1980 Sophie's Choice - William Styron

1980 The Book of Dun Cow - Walter Wangerin, Jr.

1981 Birdy - William Wharton

1981 Sister Wolf - Ann Arensberg

1981 The Stories of John Cheever - John Cheever

1981 Plains Song - Wright Morris

1982 Dew Dales Loves Sophie to Death - Robb Forman

1982 So Long, See You Tomorrow - William Maxwell

1982 Rabbit is Rich - John Updike

1983 The Women of Brewster Place - Gloria Naylor

1983 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

1983 The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty - Eudora Welty

1984 Stones for Ibarra - Harriet Doerr

1984 Victory Over Japan - Ellen Gilchrist

1985 White Noise - Don DeLillo

1985 Easy in the Islands - Bob Shacochis

1986 World's Fair - E.L. Doctorow

1987 Paco's Story - Larry Heinemann

1988 Paris Trout - Pete Dexter

1989 Spartina - John Casey

1990 Middle Passage - Charles Johnson

1991 Mating - Norman Rush

1992 All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy

1993 The Shipping News - Annie Proulx

1994 A Frolic of His Own - William Gaddis

1995 Sabbath's Theater - Philip Roth

1996 Ship Fever and Other Stories - Andrea Barrett Ship

1997 Cold Mountain - Charles Frazier

1998 Charming Billy - Alice McDermott

1999 Waiting - Ha Jin2000 In America - Susan Sontag

2001 The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen

2002 Three Junes - Julia Glass

2003 The Great Fire - Shirley Hazzard

2004 The News from Paraguay - Lily Tuck

2005 Europe Central - William T. Vollmann

2006 The Echo Maker - Richard Powers

2007 Tree of Smoke - Denis Johnson

2008 Shadow Country - Peter Matthiessen
2009 Let the Great World Spin - Colum McCann