NEW YORK (AP) -- "Master of the Senate," the third volume of Robert Caro's epic chronicle of the life and times of Lyndon Johnson, is among the finalists for the 53rd annual National Book Awards.
Novelist Philip Roth, a two-time winner for "Goodbye, Columbus" and "Sabbath's Theater," will receive an honorary medal. The awards ceremony takes place Nov. 20, with Steve Martin serving as host for the fourth straight year. Nominees were announced Wednesday.
Caro, 66, has been working on his Johnson series since the mid-1970s and has yet to reach the presidential years, the heart of a planned fourth and final volume. Caro's first Johnson book, "The Path to Power," was a National Book Award finalist in 1983.
Caro has been criticized by supporters of the late president for portraying him as little more than crude and ruthless. But few such complaints were heard about "Master of the Senate," which follows Johnson's incredible rise from newly elected senator in the late 1940s to majority leader by 1954.
Caro had insisted from the beginning that he considered Johnson a creature of both ambition and benevolence and "Master of the Senate" emphasized his legislative genius in getting Congress, in 1957, to pass the first civil rights bill of the 20th century.
The book has been a best seller for months, despite running more than 1,000 pages.
Along with "Master of the Senate," other nonfiction nominees include Steve Olson's "Mapping Human History," Atul Gawande's "Complications," Devra Davis' "When Smoke Ran Like Water" and Elizabeth Gilbert's "The Last American Man."
The fiction finalists are notable for leaving out some of the year's most highly praised novels : Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones," Jeffrey Eugenides' "Middlesex" and Jonathan Safran Foer's "Everything Is Illuminated." The nominees include "You Are Not a Stranger Here," a debut story collection by Adam Haslett that novelist Jonathan Franzen recommended for the "Today" show book club. The other four finalists, none of whom have published more than two fiction books, are "Big If," by Mark Costello; Julia Glass' "Three Junes"; Brad Watson's "The Heaven of Mercury"; and "Gorgeous Lies," by Martha McPhee, daughter of the award-winning essayist John McPhee.
Sharon Olds, former state poet laureate of New York, was nominated for her collection, "The Unswept Room"; 87-year-old Ruth Stone was cited for "In the Next Galaxy." Other poetry finalists were Harryette Mullen's "Sleeping With the Dictionary," Alberto Rios' "The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body" and Ellen Bryant Voigt's "Shadow of Heaven."
Nominees for young people's literature included "The House of the Scorpion," by Nancy Farmer; M.T. Anderson's "Feed"; Naomi Shihab Nye's "19 Varieties of Gazelle"; Elizabeth Partridge's "This Land Was Made for You and Me" and Jacqueline Woodson's "Hush."
Winners receive $10,000, finalists $1,000. The awards are sponsored by the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization that runs dozens of educational outreach programs.
