Fiction: Tinkers by Paul Harding From Cormac McCarthy to Jeffrey Eugenides, the Pulitzer in fiction is usually awarded to a well-known and established writer, but this year, Paul Harding, an expository writing professor at Harvard, took the prize for his novel Tinkers. Published by Bellevue Literary Press, a small independent publisher, this is a tremendous surprise for a novel that had been winning critical praise for its “story of a dying man drifting back in time to his hardscrabble New England childhood.” Fiction Finalists: Love in Infant Monkeys by Lydia Millet In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin History: Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed In a year of economic turmoil, Liaquat Ahamed’s elegant, compelling history of the leading bankers in the 1920s who helped bring about the last depression brought a welcome bit of historical perspective. It’s an overarching lesson, as Janet Maslin noted in her New York Times review, that “not even the most sophisticated economists of the era could accurately predict disaster, let alone guard against it” is eerily apt. After a career in finance, this is Ahamed’s debut book. History Finalists: Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City by Greg Grandin Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 by Gordon S. Wood Biography: The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T.J. Stiles For the second year in a row, a biographical work has pulled off a repeat by winning both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer. Last year it was Annette Gordon-Reed’s epic story of Thomas Jefferson’s slave family, The Hemingses of Monticello and this year it was T.J. Stiles for his excellent biography of one of the most colorful of the robber barons, Cornelius Vanderbilt. Special mention also goes to Stiles’ previous book on a man from the other side of the tracks, outlaw Jesse James. Biography Finalists: Cheever: A Life by Blake Bailey Woodrow Wilson: A Biography by John Milton Cooper Jr. General Nonfiction: The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy by David E. Hoffman We thought the arms race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union ended with a whimper but it was almost a bang, according to David Hoffman’s compellingly terrifying account of the wind down. With President Obama at a conference on nuclear weapons, Hoffman’s book is a fine piece of history with a serious warning about the continued threat from the legacy of the arms race. General Nonfiction Finalists: How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities by John Cassidy The Evolution of God by Robert Wright Poetry: Versed by Rae Armantrout Last month Armantrout won the National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry, but even before winning big for this book, she has had a distinguished career as a teacher and poet. The new must-read poetry book was called in the TLS a “major and moving addition to a life’s work in many-angled reflection.” Poetry Finalists: Tryst by Angie Estes Inseminating the Elephant by Lucia Perillo