From today’s New York Times:

The National Book Award finalists, announced yesterday, include “American Born Chinese” by Gene Luen Yang in the young people’s literature category, the first graphic novel to be nominated for a National Book Award. The winners will be announced in a ceremony on Nov. 15. In fiction, the finalists are Mark Z. Danielewski for “Only Revolutions”; Ken Kalfus for “A Disorder Peculiar to the Country”; Richard Powers for “The Echo Maker”; Dana Spiotta for “Eat the Document”; and Jess Walter for “The Zero.” The nonfiction finalists are Taylor Branch for “At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68”; Rajiv Chandrasekaran for “Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone”; Timothy Egan for “The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl”; Peter Hessler for “Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China’s Past and Present”; and Lawrence Wright for “The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11.”

Full link to the Arts section entry, here.