November, for me, is a month when I reflect on my New Year’s resolutions and how they are coming along. This year my resolution was to read more, specifically to finish reading my library books from cover to cover. This may not sound like a big deal, but my day often consists of being surrounded by a variety of great books that I can’t help but start reading more than one! As a result, it’s difficult finishing a single book. However, it’s November, and I still have time to read at least one book in its entirety.
In an attempt to fulfill my New Year’s resolution, I decided to pick a book in the running for a 2025 National Book Award. This seemed fitting since November is the month when the National Book Foundation honors five authors with National Book Awards. There are twenty-five author finalists, but only one winner in the following categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people’s literature. Different factors are taken into consideration by the National Book Foundation when selecting the winners, but all titles represent some of the best literature in the country. Here are just a few of the titles that have been nominated for a 2025 National Book Award.
Non-Fiction
In When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World, anthropologist and former Los Padres Hotshot wildland firefighter Jordan Thomas vividly describes his six-month fire season with the Los Padres Hotshots. Thomas recounts what is it was like to battle wildfires during a record-setting season and provides information on how wildfires have evolved throughout the years. Thomas also introduces historical factors that offer a new perspective on the climate crisis. These include the ways in which the Indigenous people in California used fire to shape the land, and how government actions tried to take the use of fire away from Indigenous people.
Translated Literature
The next 2025 National Book Award finalist is The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje. Noon Merckem served in the Great War and lost his memory due to shell shock. While living in the psychiatric asylum, he receives visits from women responding to a newspaper ad—each hoping he might be their spouse who vanished during the war. Years later, Julienne identifies Noon as her husband and brings him home. Attempting to help Noon recover his memory, Julienne shares stories about his life, but Noon begins to doubt her sincerity and struggles to determine whether she is telling the truth. Can Noon find peace amid the confusion of his past and new identity?
Poetry
Great reading experiences often occur when we feel seen and understood. This occurs when an author captures what it’s like to live through a certain experience—or expresses emotions such as loss, love, and longing in a deeply familiar way. In The New Economy, poet Gabrielle Calvocoressi does just that. Her poetry collection explores themes of loss, love, memory, aging, and gender. Calvocoressi writes about what it’s like to protect the body one is born with while yearning to have been born in another. Additionally, her series of “Miss You” poems evoke the pain of absence—the people we wish we could see again and the moments we wish we could relive. Calvocoressi’s poetry invites us to face our sorrows and remember the people, or the what, that have left us.
These and other titles that speak to the heart and mind are available for check out at A.K. Smiley Public Library.
~ Celina Lozano is a Library Specialist who is currently reading, and hopefully finishing, When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World by Jordan Thomas.