NB Awards, 1952

Fiction

Winner: From Here to Eternity by James Jones

others nominated:
The Morning Watch by James Agee
The Grass Harp by Truman Capote
Requiem for a Nun by William Faulkner
The Strange Children by Caroline Gordon
The Holy Sinner by Thomas Mann
Melville Goodwin USA by John P. Marquand
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Lie Down in Darkness by William Styron
The Witch Diggers by Jessamyn West
The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk

Poetry

Winner: Collected Poems by Marianne Moore

others nominated:
Nones by W.H. Auden
The Spirit of the Scene by William Rose Benet
Selected Poems by Richard Eberhart
Selected Poems of Horace Gregory
The Seven-League Crutches by Randall Jarrell
Praise to the End by Theodore Roethke
Selected Poems by Muriel Rukeyser
The Collected Earlier Poems by William Carlos Williams
Paterson by William Carlos Williams

Only Catcher,although I've probably encountered many (most?) of the poems in the Auden.

Catcher and The Caine Mutiny for me. I want to say I've read From Here to Eternity but don't really know if I did or if it's a faux memory (memoire?). Obviously, if I did I was an adolescent.

My mother was a great and avid reader and I've read many of the things she read. It's through her that I met the Hogbens, one of my favorite families. Anyone who can keep the local sheriff in a jar in the root cellar is okay in my book. I know she owned it and read it, so I might have read it, as well. I read much of what she read, with little or no understanding. Adult novels had heterosexual body play that one didn't find in children's reading, there wasn't really a YA category then. The more sex the better for this fourteen year-old boy.

Catcher, of course, and many of the poets, though not those specific books, except that I think I've read most of Marianne Moore at one time or another.

I am pretty sure my dad has the Roethke book and I've read parts of it. I believe my mom had Paterson but I don't think I read it. Of course I have read Catcher but none of the other books. Wasn't the Wouk made into a movie? I may have seen that.

No one in LT at the moment has that Roethke book. Hard to come by apparently.

It's a Humphrey Bogart classic: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046816/

The Catcher in the Rye and The Morning Watch for me.

Just the Catcher for me too - how pedestrian!

7> You must be an Agee aficionado because The Morning Watch is pretty obscure, not even owned by 100 LTers!

Okay, time to begin the 1953 thread...

Morning Watch is hard to come by but worth finding - might be good for a short read some month. Paterson is a major classic well worth reading. I believe both were New Directions, so it was a good year for them. I have both Requiem for a Nun and The Holy Sinner, but haven't gotten to either of them. I remember reading Lie Down in Darkness a long time ago, and liking it, but it is through a glass darkly.

And From Here to Eternity Won? I understand Marianne Moore, a strong contender in a strong field, but can't figure out how you get from here to eternity in that crowd.

8 - I do love Agee. I was lucky enough to find a copy in a wonderful used bookstore (Westsider Books for those of you in NY - I want to live in that place). I second A_musing's recommendation for a short read. It's quite delightful.

>11 janemarieprice: I love Agee too, but haven't read that one. Westsider Books? Oooo, going to look for it. Thanks.

6: My father has the poem, in another collection, but not the book. His wife is going to scan it and send it to me and I'll post it here.

What a wonderful idea this thread is, 'Rique!

I have been largely absent from LT for the past few months but must pipe up here. I am discovering that the 50s were obviously most interesting to me since I have read many of the titles listed on the lists posted so far.

I have a very fond recollection of Agee's Death in the Family, Jane #7 and 11, and it is one of the many books I tell myself I must reread sometime. And Let Us Now Praise Famous Men I have read some of and skimmed other parts. The New Yorker has an interesting study of Agee, written by David Denby, here http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/01/09/060109crbo_books , with some interesting comparisons to Orwell.

Perhaps Agee needs to be added to our list of future Salon reads??? And no, I don't think I have read The Morning Watch.

Only The Grass Harp besides Catcher in the Rye, though I've read lots of the poetry by Eberhart, Roethke, Rukeyser and Williams. I have Paterson, and have always meant to read it -- maybe I will soon.

Catcher in the Rye, of course, and Paterson. In what year did The Naked and the Dead appear?

The Naked and the Dead came out in '48, two years prior to the inaugural NB Awards.