NBCC's best reads

The National Book Critics Circle this morning posted its Good Reads list on its blog, Critical Mass. Renamed since the inaugural model, "Best Recommended," appeared last fall, this list came from votes from about 600 NBCC members and NBCC award laureates.

The NBCC's Good Reads -- Winter List
What Writers and Critics Are Reading

Fiction:
1. "Tree of Smoke," by Denis Johnson (Farrar Straus & Giroux)
2. "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," by Junot Diaz (Riverhead)
3. "Diary of a Bad Year," by J.M. Coetzee (Viking)
4. "People of the Book," by Geraldine Brooks (Viking)
5. "Zeroville," by Steve Erickson (Europa)

Nonfiction:
1. "The Rest Is Noise," by Alex Ross (FSG)
2. "Brother, I’m Dying," by Edwidge Danticat (Knopf)
3. "In Defense of Food," by Michael Pollan (Penguin Press)
4. "Musicophilia," by Oliver Sacks (Knopf)*
5. "The Shock Doctrine," by Naomi Klein (Metropolitan)*

Poetry:
1. "Elegy," by Mary Jo Bang (Graywolf)
2. "Time and Materials," by Robert Hass (Ecco)*
3. "Gulf Music," by Robert Pinsky (FSG)*
4. "The Collected Poems, 1956–1998," by Zbigniew Herbert (Ecco)
5. "Sharp Teeth," by Toby Barlow (Harper)

*There was a tie for fourth in nonfiction, and for second in poetry.