Book critics start narrowing the list

January 27, 2000

NEW YORK

The National Book Critics Circle have announced the finalists for its annual awards, which will be presented March 13.

Fiction

*A. Manette Ansay, "Midnight Champagne" (Morrow)

*Frederick Busch, "The Night Inspector" (Crown)

*J.M. Coetzee, "Disgrace" (Viking)

*David Gates, "The Wonders of the Invisible World" (Knopf)

*Jonathan Lethem, "Motherless Brooklyn" (Doubleday)

General Nonfiction

*Jane Brox, "Five Thousand Days Like This One: An American Family History" (Beacon)

*John Dower, "Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II" (Norton/New Press)

*Patricia Hampl, "I Could Tell You Stories: Sojourns in the Land of Memory" (Norton)

*Jean-Paul Kauffmann, "The Black Room at Longwood: Napoleon's Exile on Saint Helena" (Four Walls Eight Windows)

*Jonathan Weiner, "Time, Love, Memory: A Great Biologist and His Quest for the Origins of Behavior" (Knopf)

Biography/Autobiography

*Richard Holmes, "Coleridge: Darker Reflections," vol. II (Pantheon)

*Jean Strouse, "Morgan: American Financier" (Random)

*Judith Thurman, "Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette" (Knopf)

*Susan Tifft and Alex Jones, "The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times" (Little, Brown)

*Henry Wiencek, "The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White" (St. Martin's)