Literary awards are rarely sufficient motivation for me to choose one title over another — the enjoyment of literature being notoriously subjective — but since Less was already on my wishlist, its recent Pulitzer Prize win firmed up my decision to purchase.

What immediately struck me was the unusual narrative structure… predominantly first-person present tense (identity undisclosed) yet omnipresent.

From where I sit, the story of Arthur Less is not so bad.

Look at him: seated primly on the hotel lobby’s plush sofa, blue suit and white shirt, legs knee-crossed so that one polished loafer hangs free of its heel. The pose of a young man.

But on occasion more like third-person. It is both confounding and intriguing. Continue reading >>

Fiction
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (Little, Brown)

Drama
The Flick by Annie Baker

History
The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 by Alan Taylor (W.W. Norton)

Biography or Autobiography
Margaret Fuller: A New American Life by Megan Marshall (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Poetry
3 Sections: Poems by Vijay Seshadri (Graywolf Press)

General Nonfiction
Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation by Dan Fagin (Bantam Books)

Music
Become Ocean by John Luther Adams (Taiga Press/Theodore Front Musical Literature)

Journalism: Public Service

The Guardian (U.S. edition) and The Washington Post

Other winners in journalism, finalists, et al, can be found here:

http://www.pulitzer.org/

And: http://www.thewire.com/culture/2014/0...

I decided to have a go at predicting who will win this year's Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. I swear I didn't notice all but one of them had been nominated for the National Book Award until I finished it. Honestly! I'm just sloppy that way.