Monday, April 18, 2011

ONCE AGAIN, WE HAVE BEEN OVERLOOKED: Your 2011 Pulitzer Prizes have arrived, and a few things of note:
  • Sorry, EmperorFranzen--you weren't even a finalist in the Fiction category, which was won by the much-acclaimed A Visit From The Goon Squad.
  • Interestingly, the Drama Prize winner is "Clybourne Park," and the only show to have run on Broadway to be nominated was "A Free Man Of Color," which got widely panned.
  • The NYT's work on concussions in football was a finalist in Public Service, but lost to the LAT for its reporting on corruption in Bell, CA.
  • Eric Foner's recent book on Lincoln and slavery won the Pulitzer for History.
Discuss.

20 comments:

  1. If Alan Schwarz (the concussion reporter) was going to lose -- and he shouldn't have -- the Bell, CA story was pretty damn good.

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  2. Maret3:38 PM

    There are a LOT of very proud and very happy faces in our building at the LAT today. I have only emailed with Vives and Gottlieb, the two who lead this coverage, but it's an honor to work in the same building with them. And without getting too political for this blog's taste, this piece, offers a moving history to who Vives is.

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  3. I read, and very much enjoyed, "A Visit From the Good Squad."  That said, I thought some of the final vignettes were flawed.  But overall, an excellent book, with a great central metaphor.

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  4. Watts3:59 PM

    Those pictures from Barbara Davidson are stunning, in so many senses of the word.

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  5. Joseph J. Finn4:03 PM

    With the disclaimer that I have not read Washington yet, I am very happy for Chernow's win in Biography; his Hamilton bio from a few years back was a magnificent piece of work.

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  6. Way to go, Sun-Times! I read that series last year, and it opened up an aspect of the city I never think about. It's easy as a middle class, northwest sider to forget about everywhere else in the city.

    And I feel that I must mention that I actually still subscribe to the paper and am very happy every morning when it appears on my doorstep. News isn't free.

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  7. gtv20004:50 PM

    I read Foner's book - not the kind of book I usually read but i was interested after hearing him on Fresh Air.  It was very good, but then again since I don't usually read this kind of book I have little basisi for comparison.

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  8. Joseph J. Finn5:47 PM

    Kudos as well to the Tribune for being a finalist for Breaking News (which was not awarded) for their coverage on the 2 firefighters who lost their lives trying to rescue squatters in a burning building.  Excellent, excellent work indeed and I'll choose to believe the jury could not come to a consensus as to which excellent work should be recognized over others.

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  9. I'm currently in the middle of A Visit from the Goon Squad (alternating between that and the first Hunger Games book) and am enjoying it.  I loved Freedom very much, but it's nice to see another novelist get some notice.  And also nice to see the NYT corrected their initial misspelling of her last name.

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  10. Professor Jeff8:12 PM

    Foner's Fiery Trial is indeed excellent, taking a seemingly over-studied subject (Lincoln and slavery) and offering some fascinating new insights. Let me also call attention to one of the other History finalists: Michael Rawson's Eden on the Charles, an environmental history of Boston that grew out of the author's dissertation at Wisconsin (under the brilliant William Cronon). It's pretty astonishing for Rawson to nab a Pulitzer nomination with his first book, and it's also great to see the committee recognizing the value of environmental history.

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  11. One note about "...Goon Squad."  If you are an ebook reader, this is one that you might want to flip through before deciding whether to download.  There's a very substantial (in terms of page numbers, not in terms of content as a proportion of the book) section that's in Powerpoint format.  I read it fine on iPad, but probably wouldn't have wanted to read it on the "normal" sized Kindle.

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  12. KCosmo12:27 AM

    I thought Foner had already written every book there was to write on Lincoln and the period -- and that was 20 years ago.

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  13. kepkanation2:15 AM

    I'm on exactly the same page -- that Hamilton book was amazing, in part because it was so long and covered such a well-trod area of American history and yet entirely gripping throughout. He's a great storyteller.

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  14. calliekl5:34 AM

    Jennifer Egan is going to be giving a talk in Portsmouth, NH in May. I'm thinking about going, although I am going to be seeing Katherine Paterson (squee) the night after in Manchester. It's a cool event though, which includes a signed copy of Goon Squad among other things. I'm thinking these tickets might go fast though!

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  15. For those interested in Paterson, my church is hosting a free talk/Q&A from her (focusing on religious matters in her books) on May 1 in midtown Manhattan.

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  16. Heather K10:17 AM

    Thank you for this note!!

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  17. A day late on this (was out yesterday for Passover), but there is much excitement going on at my workplace as well - we produced the world premiere of Clybourne Park!  Needless to say, we're thrilled. This makes our fifth PP winner in our 40 year history.

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  18. Marsha12:44 AM

    Congratulations! How exciting! (Did I tell you that there's a theater in Chicago doing Circle Mirror Transfomation?)

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  19. Marsha - No, you didn't mention it!  You should definitely see it if you can - it's my favorite show we've done at PH in the last 7 years, which is saying something.

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