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Robert Blau and Steven Hahn, co-chairs; Dana Canedy, administrator

Will Arbery

Publication
Heroes of the Fourth Turning
Citation
A scrupulously hewn drama centering on four alumni of a conservative Catholic college who confront themselves and each other, clashing over theology, politics and personal responsibility.
Tags: 2020
Categories: Drama

Albert Woodfox with Leslie George

Publication
Solitary
Citation
An unflinching indictment of Louisiana's most notorious prison and the racist criminal justice system as told through an innocent man's redemptive journey faced with a life sentence in solitary confinement.
Publisher
Grove Atlantic
Tags: 2020
Categories: General Nonfiction

Anne Boyer

Citation
An elegant and unforgettable narrative about the brutality of illness and the capitalism of cancer care in America.
Tags: 2020
Categories: General Nonfiction
Publisher
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication
The Undying: Pain, Vulnerability, Mortality, Medicine, Art, Time, Dreams, Data, Exhaustion, Cancer, and Care

Louise Aronson

Publication
Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life
Citation
An empathetic and nuanced critique, informed by the author’s decades of experience as a geriatrician, of the ways in which our society and healthcare system neglect, stereotype and mistreat the elderly.
Publisher
Bloomsbury
Tags: 2020
Categories: General Nonfiction

Mary Ruefle

Publication
Dunce
Citation
Poems of wildness and wit that swerve away from the predictable as they balance comedy and melancholy. 
Publisher
Wave Books
Tags: 2020
Categories: Poetry

Dorianne Laux

Publication
Only as the Day Is Long: New and Selected Poems
Citation
Poetic narratives of plainspoken authenticity with characters whose breadth spans the wide range of American life.
Publisher
W.W. Norton
Tags: 2020
Categories: Poetry

Jericho Brown

Citation
A collection of masterful lyrics that combine delicacy with historical urgency in their loving evocation of bodies vulnerable to hostility and violence.
Tags: 2020
Categories: Poetry
Publisher
Copper Canyon Press
Publication
The Tradition

George Packer

Publication
Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century
Citation
An inventive, compulsively readable life of a complicated man of considerable talents and personal failings that offers extraordinary insights into the inner workings of Washington's foreign policy establishment.
Publisher
Alfred A. Knopf
Tags: 2020
Categories: Biography

Benjamin Moser

Citation
An authoritatively constructed work told with pathos and grace, that captures the writer’s genius and humanity alongside her addictions, sexual ambiguities and volatile enthusiasms.
Tags: 2020
Categories: Biography
Publisher
Ecco
Publication
Sontag: Her Life and Work

the late Deirdre Bair

Publication
Parisian Lives: Samuel Beckett, Simone de Beauvoir, And Me
Citation
A tale of authorial ambition, self-doubt and achievement that offers intriguing insight into the world of two of the 20th century’s literary giants and the art of biography itself.
Publisher
Nan A. Talese/Doubleday
Tags: 2020
Categories: Biography