Literary awards and honors: March 19, 2024

Today's award roundup is a mixture of formal awards versus people's choices.

• The National Book Foundation has chosen its 2024 5 Under 35 honorees: Antonia Angress, author of Sirens & Muses; Maya Binyam, author of Hangman; Zain Khalid, author of Brother Alive; Tyriek White, author of We Are a Haunting; and Jenny Tinghui Zhang, author of Four Treasures of the Sky (Literary Hub).

• As we await the National Book Critics Circle Awards — in person, for the first time in three years — on March 23, revisit the contenders and see what judges loved about them (Literary Hub).

• Jonathan Eig has won the 2024 Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize in American History for King: A Life, the first major biography of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in decades (The New York Times).

• You might think that romance is a straightforward genre, since it has some fairly well established rules, but Nikki DeMarco says these eight romance novels were extremely polarizing (Book Riot).

• Speaking of controversial ... the Hugo Awards have gotten a bad rap in recent years, but Chris M. Arnone just wants to share his favorite ten books that have ever received the award (Book Riot).