Guardian First Book Award - 2012 shortlist

FICTION:

The Yellow Birds (M) 
by Kevin Powers

In the midst of a bloody battle in the Iraq War, two soldiers, bound together since basic training, do everything to protect each other from both outside enemies and the internal struggles that come from constant danger.

The Art of Fielding (M)
by Chad Harbach

At Westish College, a small school on the shore of Lake Michigan, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big-league stardom. But when a routine throw goes disastrously off course, the fates of five people are upended.

Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-cream Float Before He Stole My Ma (M)

by Kerry Hudson

Tony Hogan tells the story of a Scottish childhood of filthy council flats and B&Bs, screeching women, feckless men, fags and booze and drugs, the dole queue and bread and marge sandwiches. It is also the story of an irresistible, irrepressible heroine, a dysfunctional family you can't help but adore, the absurdities of the eighties and the fierce bonds that tie people together no matter what

NON-FICTION:

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: life, death, and hope in a Mumbai undercity (M)
by Katherine Boo

From Pulitzer Prize-winner Katherine Boo, a landmark work of narrative nonfiction that tells the dramatic and sometimes heartbreaking story of families striving toward a better life in one of the twenty-first century’s great, unequal cities. In this brilliantly written, fast-paced book, based on three years of uncompromising reporting, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human.

Sandstorm : Libya in the time of revolution (M)
by Lindsey Hilsum

Describes the 2011 defeat of Libya's dictator Muammar Gadaffi by his own people, tracing the story of Gadaffi's regime from its early days of popular appeal to the fear and corruption of its final years from the perspectives of five Libyan rebels.