The nonfiction finalists include works of current and more distant history, biography and memoir, including the much talked about book at the moment, "The Year of Magical Thinking," by Joan Didion. Published by Alfred A. Knopf, Ms. Didion's work explores a year in which her husband dies and her daughter becomes gravely ill.

Also named as finalists were "102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers" (Times Books/Henry Holt), a chronicle of the harrowing moments between the attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the collapse of the two buildings, by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn, reporters for The New York Times; and "Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves" (Houghton Mifflin), an account of the British abolitionist movement of the late 1700's, by Adam Hochschild. "Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius" (Houghton Mifflin), a biography by Leo Damrosch, and "Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), a detailed account of how technology aids the global migration of species, by Alan Burdick, complete the list of nonfiction nominees.