National Book Awards Releases Nominees

In a bid to generate more excitement for its annual National Book Awards, the foundation that administers the prize has released four long lists of nominees for the first time this year.

Five finalists in each category will be announced Oct. 16. The black-tie ceremony for the awards is Nov. 20 in Manhattan.

The nominated books and authors, revealed this week, are as follows:

Fiction: Tom Drury, “Pacific” (Grove); Elizabeth Graver, “The End of the Point” (Harper); Rachel Kushner, “The Flamethrowers” (Scribner); Jhumpa Lahiri, “The Lowland” (Knopf); Anthony Marra, “A Constellation of Vital Phenomena” (Hogarth); James McBride, “The Good Lord Bird” (Riverhead Books); Alice McDermott, “Someone” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux); Thomas Pynchon, “Bleeding Edge” (Penguin); George Saunders, “Tenth of December: Stories” (Random House); Joan Silber, “Fools: Stories” (Norton).

Nonfiction: T.D. Allman, “Finding Florida: The True Story of the Sunshine State” (Atlantic Monthly); Gretel Ehrlich, “Facing the Wave: A Journey in the Wake of the Tsunami” (Pantheon); Scott C. Johnson, “The Wolf and the Watchman: A Father, a Son, and the CIA” (Norton); Jill Lepore, “Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin” (Knopf); Wendy Lower, “Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt); James Oakes, “Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865″ (Norton); George Packer, “The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux); Alan Taylor, “The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832″ (Norton); Terry Teachout, “Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington” (Gotham); Lawrence Wright, “Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief” (Knopf).

Poetry: Frank Bidart, “Metaphysical Dog” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux); Roger Bonair-Agard, “Bury My Clothes” (Haymarket); Lucie Brock-Broido, “Stay, Illusion” (Knopf); Andrei Codrescu, “So Recently Rent a World” (Coffee House); Brenda Hillman, “Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire” (Wesleyan University); Adrian Matejka, “The Big Smoke” (Penguin); Diane Raptosh, “American Amnesiac” (Etruscan); Matt Rasmussen; “Black Aperture” (Louisiana State University); Martha Ronk, Transfer of Qualities” (Omnidawn); Mary Szybist, “Incarnadine: Poems” (Graywolf Press).

Young People’s Literature: Kathi Appelt, “The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp” (Atheneum); Kate DiCamillo, “Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures” (Candlewick); Lisa Graff, “A Tangle of Knots” (Philomel); Alaya Dawn Johnson, “The Summer Prince” (Arthur A. Levine); Cynthia Kadohata, “The Thing About Luck” (Atheneum); David Levithan, “Two Boys Kissing” (Knopf); Tom McNeal, “Far Far Away” (Knopf); Meg Rosoff, “Picture Me Gone” (Putnam); Anne Ursu, “The Real Boy” (Walden Pond); Gene Luen Yang, “Boxers & Saints” (First Second).