Talk:National Book Award for Nonfiction


 * This list is split from National Book Award in a sense. That article history, discussion (Talk:National Book Award), and discussion edit history may be relevant here.

Early awards and finalists
1949/1950. After reading next-day coverage in the New York Times, I have added the 1949/1950 winner and five honorable mention with a paragraph of explanation. Otherwise I have tweaked the one-line introduction to the list in progress, which now reads "four finalists (from 1987) or other runners up". The article and that one-liner will need amendment, eventually but it would be premature to go further now.

Talk:National Book Award is the best place for discussion of the general issue (how and how soon to amend the texts). For the moment I am only securing a starting point for the current series lists. (At Fiction and Poetry, it's simple: there was one winner without honorable mentions.) --P64 (talk) 16:28, 9 January 2012 (UTC)


 * 1935 to 1941. See List of winners of the National Book Award. --P64 (talk) 01:40, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Now covered here also, National Book Award for Nonfiction.
 * As I complete that section its heading is "Early awards to nonfiction"; its coverage is the six General Nonfiction (1935-40) and two Biography (1935-36) awards. There is some inconsistency in listing the Biography awards, a category discontinued after 1936, because two other categories, Most Original Book (1935-39) and Bookseller Discovery (1936-41) sometimes recognized nonfiction books. --P64 (talk) 01:44, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

1984 transition
This hour I explained the 1982 to 1984 transition from April/May recognition for books published during the preceding calendar year (1949/50 to 1982/83) to November recognition for books published during the award year --roughly: then November to October; today December to November. (Evidently, books published during most of 1983 were never considered for American Book Awards, as they were called at the time.)

At the same time, I entered the winner and finalists, from the same source --1984 only. --P64 (talk) 01:40, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Tables draft in user space
In User space I now have a numerical table chronological overview of categories, User:P64/FSF/National Book Award. As I write, it is is complete for 1950 to 2011.

That is followed by an incomplete draft table of 1964–1983 Nonfiction winners and finalists (link), which tries a couple of different styles. The table rows for Autobiography, Biography, and/or History are complete (including wiki-markup) and they share one consistent color tint --shared because NBAwards have grouped those subcategories together in different ways. Rows for other nonfiction subcategories are empty but they have different tints, which shows what I have in mind.

Recently I rearranged the list of NBA winners in previous categories, List of winners of the National Book Award: 2012-01-05, group multiple previous categories for History and (Auto)biography; Science, Philosophy, and Religion; Children's Literature. That super-group for History and (Auto)biography is the one completed and commonly tinted in the draft table. --P64 (talk) 19:20, 24 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Yesterday I returned to my draft table of 1964–1983 Nonfiction winners and finalists, which I resolve to complete.
 * At the same time I made a list, including much raw data from NBF, of all the NBAwards whose losing Finalists I do not plan to cover: User:P64/FSF/National Book Award. Briefly, those are Poetry, Translation, and the miscellaneous Fiction categories of the 1980s. --P64 (talk) 17:37, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Uncertain subtitles
For 1984 to 2005, the following subtitles are uncertain. I checked two or more online dealers (where Google Books may be a dealer) and they do not clearly show me which is the first edition subtitle. Some are internally inconsistent: a heading gives one subtitle; a front cover image clearly shows another. These books all have U.S. publishers, so the Library of Congress may be a decisive source. --P64 (talk) 15:45, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Anne Applebaum, Gulag: A History; or ... A History of the Soviet Camps
 * John D'Emilio, Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin; or ... Bayard Rustin and the Quest for Peace and Justice in America
 * Steve Olson, Mapping Human History: Discovering the Past through Our Genes; or ... Genes, Race, and Our Common Origins
 * Anne Roiphe, Fruitful: A Real Mother in the Modern World; or a memoir of modern motherhood


 * For Radioactive the Library of Congress (http://lccn.loc.gov/2011281920) gives "Main title" Radioactive : Marie & Pierre Curie, a tale of love & fallout (since my last edit, that is our listing with lowercase subtitle) and "Variant title" Marie and Pierre Curie, a tale of love and fallout (the subtitle alone, without ampersands).
 * I don't where LC by policy reliably follows publisher-provided data, or follows the front cover or the title page or the book, nor precisely where we consider LC decisive, or consider the front cover or the title page decisive, etc. I guess that we haven't yet made some of those judgments, but I won't be surprised that to learn that Books editors or Awards editors have discussed any of these matters fruitfully. --P64 (talk) 16:47, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah titles and subtitles can be complex and unclear due to editions, variants and foreign editions. For this article anyway, can use the same one the National Book Award used would be the most accurate. Green Cardamom (talk) 16:57, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
 * We will not reach consensus in favor of NBF; that isn't a viable alternative. From experience I do know that the NBF listings are not reliable on matters of detail such as author name and book title. Occasionally they list the wrong person or book, and they haven't yet changed one that I reported two weeks ago. --P64 (talk) 19:15, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
 * If there was an obvious error such as wrong name or mis-spelling that would be a different case. But in this situation, we should just report and mirror the NBF, unless there is an obvious error of fact. Green Cardamom (talk) 21:13, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Scope of editorial "markup" by User:P64
Everywhere under Category:National Book Award, where I have spent many hours this winter, my wiki-markup of author names and book titles incorporates some check of every one. When I am done, every blue link has been confirmed; I believe that its target is the listed author or book. Every redlink or no-link name or title has been confirmed; I believe we have no article on the author or book (or the book series, if any).

When I remember my resolution, edit summary "naive markup" indicates that I have added wikilinks without doing such work (a bad practice that is wiki-common, so to speak). Otherwise this work has been done, although I may neglect to say "complete markup". For example working on this page a couple days ago, I complete such work one day after naive markup.
 * 20:05, 1 April 2012‎ P64 . . . (→‎Nonfiction, 1984 to date: complete 1990s and 1980s data with naive markup)
 * 18:19, 2 April 2012‎ P64 . . . (→‎Nonfiction, 1984 to date: markup 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 1986 1985; Note explain Peter Gay 1988)

Commonly i use a hidden comment to indicate that I believe we have no article on a person or a book; always i do so when i have fix a false bluelink. Example:

(As I write, that is the only one that survives here. GreenCardamom has deleted the others and they may be contrary to policy afaik. That in turn has prompted me to explain in Talk space.) --P64 (talk) 17:23, 4 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I removed them because they seemed like personal notes, which are fine when in the process of overhauling an article, but they should be removed when done because the page belongs to everyone and just clutters things. If I didn't remove them, someone else eventually would. As for verifying if a article link exists or not, there's not much you can do because the article could be created at any time, so having a note doesn't really help since the note may be old and the article recently created. You just have to periodically re-check, and hope that when someone creates a new article, they search Wikipedia and create wikilinks back to it. Green Cardamom (talk) 17:42, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

1964 to 1983
Are these winners listed elsewhere on Wikipedia, or just not yet entered in the article? I just removed the "incomplete-list" template, but maybe too soon? Green Cardamom (talk) 16:20, 28 April 2012 (UTC)


 * (The big List of winners of the National Book Award is complete except for year 1982 in the new section List of winners of the National Book Award (1980 to 1983). I didn't find 1982 by the same NYTimes searches that work for most years. I am now at the relevant library.)
 * Losing finalists are listed only in the user-space tables User:P64/FSF/National Book Award. I have completed checking and linking all author names and book titles and I have included many notes.
 * There are some open question regarding format. Should we use any of my layout and background color here in article space? What annotations are appropriate here? How should we use blue and red links in author/title/annotation?
 * The first question needs some answer before material is copied here. And where in Article space, if at all, should we use tables like the one currently in this article? Perhaps immediately above lists of winners and finalists? --P64 (talk) 16:45, 28 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I like the colored tables you made for 64-83 and would have no problem if they were imported into the article. It's a complex award it needs something like it, it's a nicely done table. Here are my thoughts:
 * For 50-63 leave as-is without the table. Same with 84-present. Maybe later they can table'ized for consistency, or not.
 * Link every author by default even if red. For book titles only link if blue, and don't wikilink words within titles. Except for winning books, they should be red linked.
 * I wouldn't bother annotating honestly, it's just a list of awards.
 * For the column "Year and count", I would just make it "Year" and leave out the count which is redundant and confusing since it's referencing categories that are not in the table and not even part of this article.
 * These are my suggestions to keep it simple and easy. Can always come back later and add chrome. There's also a lot of work to be done adding back links which is very important, though most award articles on Wikipedia need that done. Green Cardamom (talk) 17:58, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
 * What do you mean by adding back links? I have created many links to this subsection (for example, Barbara Tuchman), so I should anchor its subheading — — to secure those links when the subheading is revised.
 * Do you agree with the scope of "Nonfiction" in my table? Referring to my overview table User:P64/FSF/National Book Award section 3, as well as main tables section 5, I have wavered on Reference (General Reference, 1980 only). ...
 * Some trimming of the code needs my work because anyone else would take much longer. I can get a version into Article space with that trimming tomorrow, i expect, almost certainly not today. --P64 (talk) 18:57, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes the B.Tuchman example is a back link, ideally it would also include a ref to the NBA website. I agree with the scope of non-fiction including the Reference category. The anchor is a good idea, I always forget to use them but it is a good practice. Green Cardamom (talk) 19:36, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

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