At the March Awards ceremony, NBCC honors not just the five winners, but the twenty books which have made it to the finalists as well. And, because our winners are decided less than an hour before the ceremonies, members of the Board prepare introductions to all the finalists in advance. To further celebrate all 25 books, along with the winners of the Balakian and Sandrof awards, we have included all the all those words of praise in the Newsletter. The introductions to Criticism and General Non-Fiction are included here, as well as the citations for the Sandrof and Balakian awards. Nona Balakian Citation Intoduction to Benjamin Schwarz, winner of the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing.
Awards come into being to thank people for doing previously thankless jobs.
If you bear this in mind, then the NBCC can bestow no more necessary award every year than the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing. Nevertheless, enough masochists persisted in reviewing books this year as to make the Balakian committee's task of whittling them down to five favorites enjoyably difficult, and whittling that list down to one, damn near impossible. The winner of this year's Balakian Award is a native of New York, a 1985 graduate of Yale, and a former editor at the World Policy Journal. Benjamin Schwarz is currently a contributing reviewer to the Los Angeles Times Book Review and, even though he lives just a short run from the Pacific, a contributing editor of The Atlantic Monthly. Personally, I'm convinced that someday, four years spent reading Benjamin Schwarz's book reviews will be accredited the equivalent of a liberal education.