Nicholas Laughlin's blog etc.

The National Book Critics Circle has announced the nominees for its 2003 awards. Of interest to Caribbean readers: Caryl Phillips's novel A Distant Shore is nominated in the fiction category (just a couple weeks after winning the 2003 Nicholas Laughlin Book Award for fiction!).

(Of more personal interest: Scott McLemee of the Chronicle of Higher Education, who gave Letters from London such a pleasing review in BOOKFORUM a few months ago, is to receive the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing.)

(Of entirely personal interest: apart from A Distant Shore, the only 2004 NBCC award nominee I've read, in any category, is Nick Hornby's Songbook (criticism).)