9-11 report named finalist for National Book Award

? What could have been a dry, impenetrable government document — the final report of the 9-11 Commission — has been honored as a finalist for a National Book Award.

The commission’s report was among five finalists in the nonfiction category. The authorized edition published by W.W. Norton has been praised as a compelling narrative and has appeared on best seller lists, with more than 1.5 million books in print.

The selection was the most surprising in a group of mostly lesser-known writers chosen Wednesday as finalists by the National Book Foundation.

Republican Thomas Kean, the 9-11 commission’s chairman, said members of the bipartisan panel were determined that the work be written as clearly as possible.

“From the beginning, I took our mandate to report to the American people very seriously, and you cannot report to the American people with language that is either dull or obtuse,” Kean told The Associated Press. “And so we were determined to make a report that was readable. Unless people read the report, they wouldn’t understand the problems and support our recommendations.”

Nonfiction nominees: Kevin Boyle, “Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age”; David Hackett Fischer, “Washington’s Crossing”; Jennifer Gonnerman, “Life on the Outside: The Prison Odyssey of Elaine Bartlett”; Stephen Greenblatt, “Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare”; and The 9/11 Commission, “The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States-Authorized Edition.”

Fiction nominees: Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, “Madeleine Is Sleeping”; Christine Schutt, “Florida”; Joan Silber, “Ideas of Heaven: A Ring of Stories”; Lily Tuck, “The News From Paraguay”; and Kate Walbert, “Our Kind: A Novel in Stories.”

Poetry nominees: William Heyen, “Shoah Train”; Donald Justice, “Collected Poems”; Carl Phillips, “The Rest of Love”; Cole Swensen, “Goest”; and Jean Valentine, “Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965-2003.”

Young people’s literature: Deb Caletti, “Honey, Baby, Sweetheart”; Pete Hautman, “Godless”; Laban Carrick Hill, “Harlem Stomp!: A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance”; Shelia P. Moses, “The Legend of Buddy Bush”; and Julie Anne Peters, “Luna: A Novel.”

Notably absent from the list were several big-name authors, including Philip Roth, whose “The Plot Against America” was well-received by critics. Bob Dylan, whose memoir, “Chronicles,” was also praised, wasn’t on the list, either. Nor was Ron Chernow’s lauded biography of Alexander Hamilton.

Also passed over in the fiction category were Marilynne Robinson’s “Gilead,” and Tom Wolfe’s “I Am Charlotte Simmons.”

Winners will be named Nov. 17.