I had a great time at the National Book Awards ceremony last year, but I'm skipping the show this year, partly because I can't get excited by these nominations. I'm predicting that Marilynne Robinson will win for Home and Jane Mayer will win for The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals, but neither possibility has me jumping up and down. As far as I'm concerned, this year's fiction award should go to Cost by Roxana Robinson and non-fiction to Human Smoke by Nicholson Baker, but neither title was nominated.

I'm not even going to venture a guess on the poetry or young adult fiction awards. Anyway, I'm skipping the show this year but will be checking out various real-time online updates. Ed Champion will be twittering and promises podcast updates. Ron Hogan will also be twittering, and the National Book Awards has its own twitter feed as well. If this is your idea of fun, join in ...