Book award season is peaking along with the autumn leaves as the National Book Award shortlists have been released in four categories. These have been whittled down from last month’s longlists, and the winners will be announced in New York City on November 19.

As we mentioned when she landed on the longlist, one of the fiction finalists will be especially familiar to Millions readers. Emily St. John Mandel, whose Station Eleven has been winning high praise, has been a staff writer for us since 2009. We’ll again point you to her first piece for us: “Working the Double Shift” examined how many writers must write as a “second career” while a day job pays the bills.

You read about nearly all of the books on the Fiction longlist here first, as they appeared in our indispensable first-half and second-half previews.

Here’s a list of the finalists in all four categories with bonus links and excerpts where available:

Fiction:

Nonfiction:

Poetry:

Young People’s Literature: