Last night, the National Book Critics Circle announced its 2010 award-winners, and Best Autobiography went to novelist Darin Strauss’s Half a Life, which he discussed on the Vox Tablet podcast last year. Other notable honorees were the Dalkey Archive, which won the Lifetime Achievement Award; David Grossman, whose To the End of the Land (reviewed in Tablet Magazine by Daphne Merkin) was a Fiction finalist; and Tom Segev’s biography of Simon Wiesenthal, reviewed in Tablet by Ron Rosenbaum, which was a Biography finalist.
Wednesday evening saw the Jewish Book Council awarding the 2010 National Jewish Book Awards. Gal Beckerman’s When They Come For Us We’ll Be Gone took top honors: Books critic Adam Kirsch praised it, and Beckerman discussed it on Vox Tablet. Hillel Halkin won best biography for his Nextbook Press tome on Yehuda Halevi. And the evening’s host was our intrepid editor-in-chief Alana Newhouse. Photos here (spoiler: There are lots of Jews).
The National Book Critics Circle Announces Award Winners [NBCC]
Related: In the Rearview [Tablet Magazine]
Self-Made Golem [Tablet Magazine]
Consolation Prize [Tablet Magazine]
Last Exit [Tablet Magazine]
Back in the USSR [Tablet Magazine]
Earlier: Halkin Wins National Jewish Book Award
Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.