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