National
Book Awards - 1956
FICTION
Winner:
John O'Hara, Ten North Frederick> Appreciations on Best of National Book Awards Fiction Blog
Finalists:
Paul Bowles - The Spider's House
Shirley Ann Grau - The Black Prince
MacKinlay Kantor - Andersonville
Flannery O'Connor - A Good Man is Hard to Find
May Sarton - Faithful Are the Wounds
Robert Penn Warren - Band of Angels
Eudora Welty - The Bride of the Innisfallen
Herman Wouk - Marjorie Morningstar
NONFICTION
Winner:
Herbert Kubly, An American in Italy
Finalists:
Gay Wilson Allen - The Solitary Singer
Alan Barth - Government by Investigation
Rachel Carson - The Edge of the Sea
Clifford Dowdey - The Land They Fought For
John Gunther - Inside Africa
Richard Hofstadter - The Age of Reform
Murray Kempton - Part of Our Time
Anne Morrow Lindbergh - Gift from the Sea
Milton Mayer - They Thought They Were Free
Allan Temko - Notre Dame of Paris
Harry S. Truman - Year of Decisions
Edmund Wilson - The Scrolls from the Dead Sea
POETRY
Winner:
W.H. Auden, The Shield of Achilles> Read the acceptance speech
> NBA Poetry Blog Essay and Archival Material for Auden
Finalists:
Elizabeth Bishop - Poems, North and South
John Ciardi - As If
Isabella Gardner - Birthdays from the Ocean
Donald Hall - Exiles and Marriages
Randall Jarrell - Selected Poems
Adrienne Rich - The Diamond Cutters
William Carlos Williams - Journey to Love