Two books from Graywolf Press are vying for NBCC awards

The 30 finalists for this year's National Book Critics Circle Awards were announced Monday, and Minneapolis' Graywolf Press has two books in the running. Kevin Young's "The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness" is a finalist in criticism, and D.A. Powell's "Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys" is a finalist in poetry.

The NBCC awards, established in 1974, is the only award that is bestowed by working critics and book-review editors.

The winners will be announced Feb. 28. Here's the full list of finalists:

Fiction

Laurent Binet, "HHhH," translated by Sam Taylor; Ben Fountain, "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk"; Adam Johnson, "The Orphan Master's Son"; Lydia Millet, "Magnificence"; and Zadie Smith, "NW"

Nonfiction

Katherine Boo, "Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity"; Steve Coll, "Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power"; Jim Holt, "Why Does the World Exist? An Existential Detective Story"; David Quammen, "Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic"; Andrew Solomon, "Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity"

Reyna Grande, "The Distance Between Us"; Maureen N. McLane, "My Poets"; Anthony Shadid, "House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East"; Leanne Shapton, "Swimming Studies"; Ngugi wa Thiong'o, "In the House of the Interpreter"

Biography

Robert A. Caro, "The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson"; Lisa Cohen, "All We Know: Three Lives"; Michael Gorra, "Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece"; Lisa Jarnot, "Robert Duncan, The Ambassador From Venus: A Biography"; Tom Reiss, "The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo"

Criticism

Paul Elie, "Reinventing Bach"; Daniel Mendelsohn, "Waiting for the Barbarians: Essays from the Classics to Pop Culture"; Mary Ruefle, "Madness, Rack, and Honey"; Marina Warner, "Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights"; Kevin Young, "The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness"

David Ferry, "Bewilderment: New Poems and Translations"; Lucia Perillo, "On the Spectrum of Possible Deaths"; Allan Peterson, "Fragile Acts"; D.A. Powell, "Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys"; A.E. Stallings, "Olives"