National Book Awards & Oprah & Okra
Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke won the National Book Award for Fiction last night.
Other winners:
- Sherman Alexie won the Literature for Young People’s Award for The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
- Tim Wiener’s Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA won the Non-Fiction Prize
- Robert Hass’ Time and Materials won the prize for Poetry
- Joan Didion and Terry Gross won honorary Medals
In a shocking coincidence, Oprah announced her new book pick on the same day that the National Book Awards were handed out. Crazy timing. Oprah’s new book will be Ken Follet’s 900+ page The Pillars of the Earth.
Billboard of the month: last week driving from Mississippi to New Orleans I saw an advertisement for the Zatarain’s Cajun seasoning company that reads “As seen on Okra.” Sadly, I did not have my camera. However, I did find a version of the sign on Flickr.
November 15th, 2007 at 7:24 am
We love Sherman here in Decatur. The cats and I are still cheering for his win. Haven’t read Tree of Smoke (still perusing the Young People’s shelves, I guess), but it looks like I will soon.
Love that Zatarain’s slogan!