Have you heard of the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence? It is a fairly new award (started in 2012) for fiction and nonfiction that is given out every June by the American Library Association. The award is chosen by a group of library professionals. The committee’s chairman is Nancy Pearl, the only librarian who has her own action figure.
I haven’t heard much about this award and I’ve definitely not seen the buzz that more established awards get when their longlists are announced. I know that it will take a while for it to become established, but I am more interested in this award than many others because it is chosen by members of my profession. It also might not be of interest to those outside the US since most of the books on the list are by American authors (Anne Enright did win the first year, though).
Here is the link for this year’s longlist. I was happy to see that I have read four of the books on the fiction list – Life After Life, The Lowland, The Woman Upstairs, and The Goldfinch. I probably won’t read any more off the fiction list before the shortlist is announced in May, but I will try to read the winner for fiction (and perhaps nonfiction). The medals will be awarded at the annual American Library Association conference at the end of June (this year held in Las Vegas -wouldn’t it be fitting if The Goldfinch won?).
And something exciting for me – I know I’ve mentioned the LibraryReads list a few times. I’ve been voting every month and submitting short reviews for the list since it started in September and one of my reviews was chosen to appear on the April list! I nominated Family Life by Akhil Sharma, a wonderful book that is highly deserving of the honor. You can see the April list here.
A Certain Fondness 