If They Gave Oscars to Books, Here Are The 2019 Nominees

February 27, 2019

Of course, the Real Book Oscars are given out at the National Book Awards ceremony; so consider these the Fake Book Oscars—they’re extra fun because you don’t even have to dress up [Ed. note: dressing up IS fun].

In putting this list together, Literary Hub figured out what each of the Academy Awards categories would look like if applied to the literary world—so Best Picture = Best Novel, etc.—and then we nominated a bunch of books and people for each. Congratulations, all.

The only question is: what should the statues look like? Little golden Maya Angelous? Globular Hemingways? Teetering book towers? Our nominations for the imaginary 2019 Academy Awards for Books are below—and since, just like the real Academy Awards, all these categories are based on taste and leave off a lot of fine contenders, feel free to nominate any and all of your missing favorites in the comments.

Best Novel (Best Picture)

Lisa Halliday, Asymmetry Tayari Jones, An American Marriage
Rebecca Makkai, The Great Believers
Madeline Miller, Circe
Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Sigrid Nunez, The Friend
Tommy Orange, There There
Olga Tokarczuk; tr. Jennifer Croft, Flights

Literary Citizen (Actor in a Leading Role)

A. N. Devers, founder of The Second Shelf
Benjamin Dreyer, Random House Copy Chief and Our Grammar Captain
Moira Donegan, writer and creator of the Shitty Men in Media list
Ronan Farrow, author of The War on Peace (who also took down Les Moonves and Eric Schneiderman)
Penina Roth, curator of the Franklin Park Reading Series
Clint Smith, poet and activist whose work focuses on mass incarceration, education and inequality
Esmé Weijun Wang, writer, mental health advocate, and kind person on Twitter
Chuck Wendig, writer and voice of Twitter reason
adrienne maree brown, women’s rights and pleasure activist, author of Emergent Strategy and Pleasure Activism

Best Debut (Actor in a Supporting Role)

ALSO READ Summary of The Gods Are Not to Blame by Ola Rotimi

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black
Oyinkan Braithwaite, My Sister, the Serial Killer
Akwaeke Emezi, Freshwater
Lisa Halliday, Asymmetry
Daisy Johnson, Everything Under
R.O. Kwon, The Incendiaries
Terese Marie Mailhot, Heart Berries
Andrew Martin, Early Work
James A. McLaughlin, Bearskin
Tommy Orange, There There
Dan Sheehan, Restless Souls
Nico Walker, Cherry

Best YA Novel (Animated Feature Film)

Elizabeth Acevedo, The Poet X
Tomi Adeyemi, Children of Blood and Bone
Jay Coles, Tyler Johnson Was Here
Justina Ireland, Dread Nation
Ashley Woodfolk, The Beauty That Remains

Best Setting (Cinematography)

Tara Isabella Burton, Social Creature (New York City, but not the New York City you live in)
Laura van den Berg, The Third Hotel (Surrealist Havana)
Samantha Harvey, The Western Wind (medieval Oakham, England)
Ahmed Saadawi, tr. Jonathan Wright, Frankenstein in Baghdad (wartime Iraq)
Chandler Klang Smith, The Sky is Yours (Empire Island . . . which is pretty much a destroyed, speculative NYC with dragons)

Best Book Jacket Design (Costume Design)

Rodrigo Corral, for Severance
John Gall, for The Hole
Darren Haggar, for My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Janet Hansen, for Cherry
Na Kim, for Evening in Paradise
Peter Mendelsund, for Calypso
Rachel Willey, for The Pisces

Best Work of Nonfiction (Documentary—Feature)

Sohaila Abdulali, What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape
Carol Anderson, One Person, No Vote
David Blight, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom
Lisa Brennan-Jobs, Small Fry
John Carreyrou, Bad Blood
Nicole Chung, All You Can Ever Know
Kiese Laymon, Heavy
Terese Marie Mailhot, Heart Berries
Michelle McNamara, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark
Susan Orlean, The Library Book
Rebecca Traister, Good and Mad
Tara Westover, Educated

Best Essay Collection (Documentary—Short Subject)

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