1st-ever Andrew Carnegie medal winners announced

[June 25, 2012]  ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) -- Anne Enright's novel "The Forgotten Waltz" and Robert Massie's biography "Catherine the Great" have won the first-ever Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in literature.

The American Library Association announced the awards Monday at its annual conference in Anaheim, Calif. The Carnegie awards for fiction and nonfiction are the first adult prizes ever sponsored by the association, which also manages the top honors for children's literature, the John Newbery and Randolph Caldecott medals.

Enright and Massie each will receive $5,000. In its announcement, the library association praised Enright's "supple prose" and Massie's "compulsively readable" style. The Carnegie selection committee was chaired by Nancy Pearl, a popular Seattle-based librarian and NPR commentator.

[Associated Press]

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