Audio from National Book Awards ceremony

originally posted February 28, 2007
May 2021: reformatted; all links adjusted; text revised to reflect changes in names and websites

Several recordings from the November 2006 National Book Awards sessions in New York City are now available online.  Among the podcast recordings are five sets of nominated authors reading from their nominated works and the acceptance speeches that the winning authors made after being named at the ceremony.  (My only complaint about this collection is that the sessions are recorded in their entirety, instead of being excerpted by author, but that’s not a big deal as long as you have the time—most sessions are twenty to thirty minutes long.)

The goal of the National Book Awards is to increase the popularity of reading and to enhance awareness of exceptional books written by American authors in four genres: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People’s Literature. Lists of nominees, finalists, and annual award winners from 1950 to the present are available at the National Book Foundation website, NationalBook.org (this foundation has administered the National Book Awards since 1989).

Access to the podcasts was originally through a site hosted by BookExpo America (BEA), BEA is the largest annual exhibition of materials published in English in the world; to best access the archived recordings in current times, click to download them or listen in MP3 format then press the play button that appears at the bottom of the Internet Achive’s WaybackMachine window that resolves.

image information: Featured image, via the National Book Foundation, which administers the National Book Awards.