Year in books 2002: A look back at books that captured our attention.

THE AWARDS

National Book Award (NONFic)

Master of the Senate

The Years of Lyndon Johnson

By Robert A. Caro

Before he was elected vice president in 1960, Lyndon Johnson spent a decade in the Senate. The author explores Johnson's career from junior senator to minority leader, and recounts his political ambitions and landmark role in passing the 1957 Civil Rights Act.

National Book Award (Fiction)

Thre Junes

By Julia Glass

During three Junes spread over a decade, the lives of several characters overlap, coalesce, and break apart: Scot widower Paul McLeod; his gay son, a bookstore owner in Manhattan; and a fragile woman named Fern, who strives to begin a new life.

Pulitzer Prize (General Nonfic)

Cary Me Home

Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution

By Diane McWhorter

The civil rights movement of the mid-20th century, much of which took place in Birmingham, Alabama, involved many struggles and many people.

Pulitzer Prize (Fiction)

Empire Falls

By Richard Russo

When Miles Roby returns to the depressed mill town of Empire Falls, Maine, to manage the Whiting family's Empire Grill, he must deal-happily or otherwise-with many of its inhabitants, including his ex-wife, cranky father, and teenage daughter, as well as the wealthy widow who rules the town.

Booker Prize

Life of Pi

By Yann Martel

When 16-year-old Pi Patel's zookeeping family is shipwrecked on its voyage from India to Canada, Pi finds himself on a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutan, and Richard Parker, a Bengal tiger. But are Pi's 227 days at sea real, a hallucination, or "a story that will make you believe in God"?

Nobel Prize for Literature

Imre Kertesz (Hungary, 1929-)

Kertesz was honored "for writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history." A survivor of the Nazi concentration camps, Kertesz explores the 20th century's vast inhumanities. Fateless (1975; trans. 1992) describes an adolescent Hungarian Jew's experiences in Auschwitz and Buchenwald.

Edgar Award

Silent Joe

By T. Jefferson Parker

Will Trona, a powerful Southern California politician, and his adopted, disfigured son Joe work side by side. When Will is murdered, Joe sidesteps the police and conducts his own investigation into his father's dark, enigmatic past.

Nebula Award and Hugo Award

American Gods

By Neil Gaiman

In this fantastical, mythological, and spiritual novel, ex-convict Shadow Moon travels across America as he becomes entangled in an upcoming battle between the Old Gods and the New American Gods, rulers over the Internet, fast food, credit cards, and the modern American soul.

Newbery Medal

A Single Shard

By Linda Sue Park

In a 12th-century Korean potter's village, Crane-man and his 10-year-old charge Tree-ear live hand to mouth. After accidentally damaging a work created by a master potter, Tree-ear repays the potter in servitude-and must prove his worth as the potter's assistant.

OTHER NOTABLES

ANY HUMAN HEART | WILL IAM BOYD

THE BLA NK SLA TE | STE VEN PINKE R

THE GIRL WITH THE PEARL EARING | TRACY CHEVALIER

HOW TO BE ALONE | JONATHA N FRANZEN

PARI S 1919 | MA RGARET MACM ILLA N

PREY | MICHAEL CRICHT ON

RUNNING WITH SCISSORS | AUGUSTE N BURROUGHS

THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES | SUE MONK KIDD

SUMERLAND | MICHAEL CHA BON

YOU SHAL KNOW OUR VELOCITY | DAVE EGGERS

NY TIMES BESTSELLERS

FICTION for the entire year of 2002

THE SUMONS | JOHN GRISHA M

EVERY THING'S EV ENTUAL | STE PHE N KING

THE NANNY DIARIES | EMMA MC LAUGHL IN AND

NICOLA KRAUS

THE SHELTERS OF STONE | JEA N M. AUEL

THE LOVELY BONES | ALICE SEBOLD

Year in Review

The UN Security Council establishes an arms embargo on Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaida, and the Taliban ... Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is murdered in Pakistan ... Slobodan Milosevic goes on trial at The Hague ... U.S. invades Afghanistan ... NASA's Mars Odyssey space probe maps the surface of Mars ... Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, dies ... Iraq disarmament crisis continues ... Bali terrorist bombing ... Bookmarks publishes its first issue.