The March by E.L. Doctorow

...has won two different awards--the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award.

The National Book Critics Circle Award has been around since 1974. Each year, 700 book reviewers get together in committees and select what they feel is the best fiction (and other categories) book of the year. Past winners include Toni Morrison, Louise Erdrich, Cormac McCarthy, John Upchuck, I mean, Updike (twice no less), Anne Tyler and Stanley Elkin. Incidentally, Liz, Jane Smiley won the award for A Thousand Acres. Doctorow has won three times, once each for Ragtime, Billy Bathgate, and The March.

The PEN/Faulkner Award is even newer...it has been around since 1980. It was named in honor of William Faulkner (who didn't give a fig for quotation marks and most usage standards) who used his Nobel prize money to create an award for young writers. PEN is an international organization of writers. This particular award honors only American authors and is considered the largest peer-juried award. Winners are "first among equals." Kind of like the Oscars..."it's an honor simply to be nominated"...yeah, right. Three judges (different each year) who happen to be noted fiction writers select five books from the over 300 that are submitted. They then choose the one they consider the best.

Doctorow deserved some sort of award for The March as he quite nicely gives the reader the overall feeling of war...in this case the Civil War. I could not help making comparisons in my mind to other wars and our current unrest in Iraq. I guess war really is hell and its effects are universal. Although Doctorow focuses on Sherman's march through Georgia, North and South Carolina only, he does a great job of showing how the war effected all peoples...the slaves, the plantation owners, the children, the military on both sides, the parents, the political leaders, etc. It was really quite well done. I enjoyed the read...even if the subject matter was dark and dreary. I found it most relevant to today. Ain't history awesome!

Happy reading!