In October, the literary prizes are falling faster than the leaves in Western Pennsylvania. I've saved them so we can consider them at one go.

National Book Award

The last big honors are the National Book Awards, to be announced next month. Here are the finalists:

Fiction: "The Lazarus Project" by Aleksandar Hemon; "Telex From Cuba" by Rachel Kushner; "Home" by Marilynne Robinson; "The End" by Salvatore Scibona; and "Shadow Country" by Peter Matthiessen.

"Shadow Country" is really a hybrid novel. Matthiessen has reshaped his three Florida novels -- "Killing Mr. Watson, "Lost Man's River" and "Bone by Bone" -- into one big book. Does that reworking really constitute an "original novel?"

Nonfiction: "This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War" by Drew Gilpin Faust; "The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family" by Annette Gordon-Reed; "Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives" by Jim Sheeler; "The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order" by Joan Wickersham; and "The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into A War on American Ideals" by Jane Mayer.

I'm reading "The Hemingses" now and find it both compelling and audacious as Gordon-Reed tends to make assumptions about the people and culture of 1700s.

Poetry: "Watching the Spring Festival" by Frank Bidart; "Fire to Fire" by Mark Doty; "Creatures of a Day" by Reginald Gibbons; "Without Saying" by Richard Howard; and "Blood Dazzler" by Patricia Smith.

Doty read here at American Shorts in June, including several selections from his nominated work.

Young people's literature: "Chains" by Laurie Halse Anderson; "The Underneath" by Kathi Appelt; "What I Saw and How I Lied" by Judy Blundell; "The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks" by E. Lockhart; and "The Spectacular Now" by Tim Tharp.

The Rea Award for the Short Story

Amy Hempel is the 2008 winner of this honor, worth $30,000 and started by Pittsburgh native Michael Rea in 1986.

Hempel's four story collections are gathered in "The Collected Stores of Amy Hempel," published in 2006.

Rea, who died in 1996, was an official of the Oliver Tyrone real estate firm here until 1970. He was a student and collector of short fiction as well as a trustee for several art museums.

Man Booker Prize

The most hyped and restrictive literary prize today, this $86,000 honor went last week to first-time novelist Aravid Adiga, a native of India, for "The White Tiger."

This honor is limited to British Commonwealth and Irish writers.

The Nobel Prize for Literature

Nothing offends Americans more than a European insulting our culture, including our novelists even though they've never read them.

Horace Engdahl, the Swedish Academy official overseeing the Nobel Prize for Literature, said before the announcement that it's doubtful a Yank can win that prize because Americans "don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature."

Oh, the grumbling, but Engdahl was generally right. American fiction is "too insular."

No surprise then when Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, 68, hauled away the $1.3 million prize last week.

Few Americans ever heard of him, yet, he lives part of the year in New Mexico and has written more than 40 books.

Our problem with Le Clezio confirms Engdahl's observation: Few of his books are available in English. Curbstone Press in Connecticut has published "Wandering Star," a 2004 novel and I'm reading it. I hope to have a review soon.