Since 1996, the Texas Book Festival has featured many National Book Award longlisters, finalists, and winners. And TBF has for years partnered with the National Book Foundation, the awards’ presenter, to feature honorees at the annual Festival.
With the 2022 National Book Award longlist announcement around the corner in early fall, the TBF staff got to thinking about some of the NBA honorees and winners featured in Festival lineups over the years, and what their critically acclaimed works meant to us. See our selections below.
Michelle Hernandez, School & Community Programs Coordinator
The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
Winner, National Book Awards 2018 for Young People’s Literature
Featured Author, Texas Book Festival 2020
Elizabeth Acevedo’s debut YA book, The Poet X, introduced us to a much-needed voice in children’s literature. A novel written completely in verse, it is, by far, one of the most powerful examples of this style of storytelling I have come across.
Ghost by Jason Reynolds
Finalist, National Book Awards 2016 for Young People’s Literature
Featured Author, Texas Book Festival 2017
Jason Reynolds’ Track Series will always hold a special place in my heart as the soundtrack, if you will, of a series of Texas road trips my husband, daughter, and I enjoyed a few years ago. Ghost, the first book in the series, is filled with moments of hilarity and tenderness and is my favorite of the bunch.
Ke’ara Hunt, Communications & Marketing Coordinator
The American Marriage by Tayari Jones
Longlist, National Book Awards 2018 for Fiction
Featured Author, Texas Book Festival 2018
This novel is deeply moving and I couldn’t help but think about the effects of America’s criminal justice system on the lives of Black families. The marriage between Celestial and Roy is challenged (to say the least) and you cannot help but mentally fight for them – as a couple and as individuals. The quote that really hit me in the feels: “A marriage is more than your heart, it’s your life. And we are not sharing ours.”
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Winner, National Book Awards 2016 for Fiction
Featured Author, Texas Book Festival 2019 and 2021
Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad left me breathless. As a Black woman, I felt a kinship with protagonist Cora as bondage is a painful part of my ancestors’ history. Though this is a fictional story, it’s engraved in realism and is a reminder that slavery is not just a part of Black history, but is America’s history and foundation. There’s an unfortunate reverberation of its roots in our present day. I also highly recommend the series adaptation on Amazon Prime Video!
Claire Burrows, Deputy Director
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw
Finalist, National Book Awards 2020 for Fiction
Featured Author, Texas Book Festival 2020
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw is a stunning reminder of the power of short stories. This debut collection about the internal, honest, and vulnerable lives of Black women and girls is impossible to put down.
Matrix by Lauren Groff
Finalist, National Book Awards 2021 for Fiction
Featured Author, Texas Book Festival 2020 and 2015
Lauren Groff came to the Texas Book Festival in 2015 with the captivating and unsettling Fates and Furies, and Matrix continues to bring Groff’s powerful, sensual, and researching writing to the page in this historical novel.
Olivia Hesse, Event Production & Logistics Coordinator
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
Winner, National Book Awards 1992 for Fiction
Featured Author, Texas Book Festival 1996 and 2013
McCarthy’s sixth novel and breakthrough commercial success was a deserving winner of the 1992 National Book Award for Fiction as he captured the romanticism and wilderness of the Texas and Mexico frontiers. The coming of age touches on the powerful themes of struggling to adapt to modernizing world, love and loss, and our connection with nature. All that combined with complex characters and vivid descriptions of the American southwest will make it hard to put this book down.
Lois Kim, Executive Director
The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
Winner, National Book Awards 2013 for Fiction
Featured Author, Texas Book Festival 2013
James McBride brought this book and a band to the 2013 Texas Book Festival and mesmerized everyone with both, and won the National Book Award a couple of weeks later. The Good Lord Bird is hilarious (as much as a novel that concerns slavery can be), with incredible dialogue and characters. This title connects to another great TBF alum, with Ethan Hawke as a fiery John Brown in the adapted Hulu series.
Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
Winner, National Book Awards 2019 for Fiction
Featured Author, Texas Book Festival 2019
Winner of the 2019 National Book Award, Trust Exercise is a novel that will stay with you long after you’ve finished, with its complex narrative structure, unreliable narrators, and layered treatment of adolescence, power, and abuse.
Matt Patin, Literary Director
The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright
Finalist, National Book Awards 2006 for Nonfiction
Featured Author, Texas Book Festival 2021, 2006, and more
Lawrence Wright—Austinite, Pulitzer Prize winner, and recipient of the Texas Writer Award—has visited the Festival many times. A session about his Going Clear (Knopf, 2013) was one of my favorites. But The Looming Tower, a definitive account of the events leading to 9/11, was what first got me hooked on his writing.
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
Longlist, National Book Awards 2020 for Nonfiction
Featured Author, Texas Book Festival 2010 and 2020
A most-viewed session in 2020, and one my favorite conversations from two-time TBF alum Isabel Wilkerson.
How We Got to the Moon: The People, Technology, and Daring Feats of Science Behind Humanity’s Greatest Adventure by John Rocco
Longlist, National Book Awards 2020 for Young People’s Literature
Featured Author, Texas Book Festival 2020
Author-illustrator John Rocco is a brilliant presenter—his multimedia session in 2020 was rich with gorgeous imagery that painted a story of the people, ideas, and technology that sent humankind into space.
Susannah Auby, Development Manager
The Other Americans by Laila Lalami
Finalist, National Book Awards 2019 for Fiction
Featured Author, Texas Book Festival 2019
Moroccan American Driss Guerraoui is killed in a hit and run on a Mojave Desert street. His story and the mystery around his death is processed through the alternating perspectives of the family members and other members of the community. Laila Lalami’s keen attention to detail and beautiful telling of one immigrant family’s struggle to make a life in America.
Disappearing Earth by Julia Philips
Finalist, National Book Awards 2019 for Fiction
Featured Author, Texas Book Festival 2019
This is not the Russia you have visited in books, movies, and travel. Set in remote Kamchatka Penninsula, Disappearing Earth follows the vanishing of not just two young girls but also the indigenous culture through the perspectives of the people whose lives are affected by the tragedy.
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