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Oakland journalist makes National Book Awards Longlist for Nonfiction

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Scott C. Johnson, an Oakland journalist who wrote about his father’s secret life as a spy in the memoir “The Wolf and the Watchman: A Father, a Son, and the CIA,” is among the 10 authors who today made the National Book Awards Longlist for Nonfiction.

Scott C. Johnson  (Trevor Snapp)

Scott C. Johnson
(Trevor Snapp)

Nine of the 10 authors on the longlist, the first in the prize’s history, have never been National Book Award finalists.
In his Chronicle review of “The Wolf and the Watchman,” Carl Colby, son of former CIA director William Colby, describes Johnson’s memoir as “searingly honest.” Johnson, Colby writes, “deftly explores the eerie parallels between these professional worlds: the CIA case officer who labors to recruit sources to provide secret information to assist the United States in its pursuit of foreign policy objectives worldwide, and the journalist who also recruits inside sources, but ones who will speak for publication.”

Also on the longlist:

“Finding Florida: The True Story of the Sunshine State,” by T.D. Allman

“Facing the Wave: A Journey in the Wake of the Tsunami,” by Gretel Ehrlich

“Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin,” by Jill Lepore (to be published in October)

“Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields,” by Wendy Lower (to be published in October)

“Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865,” by James Oakes

“The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America,” by George Packer

“The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832,” by Alan Taylor

“Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington,” by Terry Teachout (to be published in October)

“Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, & the Prison of Belief,” by Lawrence Wright

The National Book Awards will announce its longlist for fiction on Sept. 19.

Categories: Awards
John McMurtrie
http://blog.sfgate.com/bookmarks/2013/09/18/oakland-journalist-makes-national-book-awards-longlist-for-nonfiction/
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