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What book is the most Brooklyn? Brooklyn Eagles Literary Prize competition aims to find out – Metro US

What book is the most Brooklyn? Brooklyn Eagles Literary Prize competition aims to find out

The Brooklyn Public Library is holding its second annual Brooklyn Eagles Literary Prize competition. The longlist of authors was chosen by borough bookstores. The award is given to one fiction author and one nonfiction author who have lived in Brooklyn, portrayed the borough in their work or addressed themes relevant to its life and culture.

“Much like the shelves that house Brooklyn Public Library’s more than 3 million books, this year’s Eagles Prize longlists are filled with established authors and rising stars whose work expresses the spirit of Brooklyn, however broadly defined,” said the library’s president and CEO Linda E. Johnson. “The award celebrates the authors, booksellers, librarians and readers who have made Brooklyn the most literary borough in America’s most literary city.”

The Brooklyn Eagles Literary Prize fiction and nonfiction shortlists, selected by committees of librarians, will be announced in September. From there, a panel of celebrated authors will choose one winning work from each category. The awards will be presented on Oct. 21 at the Brooklyn Classic, the Eagles’ annual fundraiser.

The Brooklyn Eagles, a group of young Brooklyn Public Library supporters, created the Brooklyn Eagles Literary Prize in 2015. Last year, author and journalist D.W. Gibson (“The Edge Becomes the Center: An Oral History of Gentrification”) and debut novelist Atticus Lish (“Preparation for the Next Life”) won.

Brooklyn Eagles Literary Prize longlist, fiction

  • Jami Attenberg: “Saint Mazie” (Grand Central Publishing)
  • Boris Fishman: “Don’t Let My Baby Do Rodeo” (Harper)
  • Kaitlyn Greenidge: “We Love You, Charlie Freeman” (Algonquin Books)
  • Samantha Hunt: “Mr. Splitfoot” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
  • Naomi Jackson: “Star Side of Bird Hill” (Penguin Press)
  • Kristopher Jansma: “Why We Came to the City” (Viking)
  • Victor Lavalle: “The Ballad of Black Tom” (Tor.com)
  • Rick Moody: “Hotels of North America” (Little, Brown and Company)
  • Tanwi Nandini Islam: “Bright Lines” (Penguin Books)
  • Sylvain Neuvel: “Sleeping Giants” (Del Rey)
  • Idra Novey: “Ways to Disappear” (Little, Brown and Company)
  • Helen Phillips: “The Beautiful Bureaucrat” (Henry Holt and Co)
  • Emma Straub: “Modern Lovers” (Riverhead Books)

Brooklyn Eagles Literary Prize longlist, nonfiction

  • Joseph Alexiou: “Gowanus: Brooklyn’s Curious Canal” (NYU Press)
  • Mary E. Buser: “Lockdown on Rikers: Shocking Stories of Abuse and Injustice at New York’s Notorious Jail” (St. Martin’s Press)
  • Molly Crabapple: “Drawing Blood: A Memoir” (Harper)
  • James McBride: “Kill ‘Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul” (Spiegel & Grau)
  • Paul Moses: “An Unlikely Union: The Love-Hate Story of New York’s Irish and Italians” (NYU Press)
  • Siddhartha Mukherjee: “The Gene: An Intimate History” (Scribner)
  • Anastasia Cole Plakias: “The Farm on the Roof: What Brooklyn Grange Taught Us About Entrepreneurship, Community, and Growing a Sustainable Business” (Avery)
  • Chef Rossi: “The Raging Skillet: The True Life Story of Chef Rossi” (The Feminist Press)
  • Janette Sadik-Khan: “Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution” (Viking)
  • Melissa Schreiber Vaughan and Susanne König: “Made in Brooklyn: An Essential Guide to the Borough’s Artisanal Food & Drink Makers” (PowerHouse Books)
  • Mike Silver: “Stars in the Ring: Jewish Champions in the Golden Age of Boxing: A Photographic History” (Lyons Press)
  • Tim Sultan: “Sunny’s Nights: Lost and Found at a Bar on the Edge of the World” (Random House)
  • Shane White: “Prince of Darkness: The Untold Story of Jeremiah G. Hamilton, Wall Street’s First Black Millionaire” (St. Martin’s Press)