National Book Award Nominees Named

Robert Caro’s biography of Lyndon B. Johnson, Charles Johnson’s tale of a freed slave’s journey and John Updike’s fourth and final “Rabbit” book are among nominees for the National Book Critics Circle Awards.

The awards are given in five categories--fiction, nonfiction, poetry, biography-autobiography and criticism--for books published last year by American writers.

The 25 finalists, announced Thursday, were chosen in a two-stage process by the National Book Critics general membership and its 24-member board of directors. Winners will be announced Feb. 16 in Claremont.

The nominees:

FICTION

* Johnson’s “Middle Passages,” which won the National Book Award in November.

* Updike’s “Rabbit at Rest.”

* Sue Miller’s “Family Pictures,” about a family with an autistic child.

* Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried.”

* Wallace Stegner’s “Collected Stories.”

NONFICTION

* Mike Davis’ “City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles.”

* Alma Guillermoprieto’s “Samba.”

* The late O. B. Hardison’s “Disappearing Through the Skylight: Culture and Technology in the 20th Century.”

* Kevin Phillips’ “The Politics of the Rich and Poor: Wealth and the American Electorate in the Reagan Aftermath.”

* Shelby Steele’s “The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America.”

BIOGRAPHY-AUTOBIOGRAPHY

* Caro’s “Means of Ascent.”

* John Espey’s “Strong Drink, Strong Language.”

* Patricia O’Toole’s “The Five of Hearts: An Intimate Portrait of Henry Adams and His Friends, 1880-1918.”

* Richard Rhodes’ “A Hole in the World.”

* T. H. Watkins, “Righteous Pilgrim: The Life and Times of Harold Ickes.”

CRITICISM

* Stanley Crouch for “Notes of a Hanging Judge: Essays and Reviews, 1979-1989.”

* Arthur Danto’s “Encounters and Reflections: Art in the Historical Present.”

* Irving Howe’s “Selected Writings: 1950-1990.”

* Camille Paglia’s “Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson.”

* Wilfrid Sheed’s “Essays in Disguise.”

POETRY

* Frank Bidart’s “In the Western Night.”

* Amy Gerstler’s “Bitter Angel.”

* John Haines’ “New Poems, 1980-1988.”

* Anthony Hecht’s “The Transparent Man.”

* Charles Simic’s “The Book of Gods and Devils.”