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    Here are the finalists for the 2019 John Leonard Prize.

    Eleni Theodoropoulos

    December 6, 2019, 2:00pm

    The National Books Critics Circle has just announced the seven finalists for the 2019 John Leonard Prize for Best First Book published in the last year. The winner will be announced on January 11th, 2020, but in the meantime, peruse the finalists at your leisure below, and feel free to get started on that Christmas reading list, which we know you’re saving for when you finally have time to read. Preferably with hot chocolate in hand and some kind of dessert within arm’s length of the armchair in which you’ll be sitting.

    Fleishmann is in trouble

    Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Fleishman Is In Trouble (Random House)

     

    The Yellow House

    Sarah M. Broom, The Yellow House: A Memoir (Grove)

     

    the unpassing

    Chia-Chia Lin, The Unpassing (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

     

    Long live the tribe of fatherless girls

    T Kira Madden, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls: A Memoir (Bloomsbury)

     

    Disappearing Earth

    Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth (Knopf)

     

    Trick Mirror

    Jia Tolentino, Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion (Random House)

     

    Lot

    Bryan Washington, Lot: Stories (Riverhead)

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