Awards: National Book Awards

Winners of the National Book Awards, presented last night and covered at length by the New York Times:

• Fiction: Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson (FSG)
• Nonfiction: Legacy of Ashes: The History of the C.I.A. by Tim Weiner (Doubleday)
• Poetry: Time and Materials by Robert Hass (Ecco/HarperCollins)
• Young people's literature: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Little, Brown)

The National Book Foundation awarded its Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters to Joan Didion, and Terry Gross of NPR's Fresh Air received the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community.