National Book Critics Circle prizes awarded
The National Book Critics Circle announced the winners of its 2009 awards in New York on Thursday. Booker Award-winning Hilary Mantel took the prize for fiction, showing that British history has play on both sides of the Atlantic.
Fiction: Hilary Mantel, "Wolf Hall" (Holt)
Nonfiction: Richard Holmes, "The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science" (Pantheon)
Biography: Blake Bailey, "Cheever: A Life" (Knopf)
Autobiography: Diana Athill, "Somewhere Towards the End" (Norton)
Criticism: Eula Biss, "Notes From No Man's Land: American Essays" (Graywolf Press)Poetry: Rae Armantrout, "Versed" (Wesleyan)
This year's recipient of the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award is prolific author Joyce Carol Oates. The Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing: Joan Acocella.
-- Carolyn Kellogg