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Simon Schama: Wins National Book Critics Circle Award

Simon Schama has won the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award for gneral nonfiction for his book "Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves, and the American Revolution" (Ecco). The award is given by a non-profit formed in 1974 by book review critics from across the country.

Nominations were announced in January. The other nominees for history books were: Ann Fessler for "The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade" (Penguin Press); and Michael Pollan for "The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals" (Penguin Press).

The winner of the biography award is Julie Phillips for "James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon" (St. Martin's Press).

The other nominees in the biography category were: Debby Applegate for "The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher"
(Doubleday); Taylor Branch for "At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years 1965-68" (Simon & Schuster); Frederick Brown for "Flaubert: A Biography" (Little, Brown and Company); and Jason Roberts for "A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History's Greatest Traveler" (HarperCollins).

Daniel Mendelsohn won the award for best memoir for "The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million" (HarperCollins).
Read entire article at HNN Staff