Jonathan Eig’s MLK biography ‘King: A Life’ is among nonfiction National Book Award nominees

By HILLEL ITALIE
AP National Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — A comprehensive new biography of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr, a memoir on family by the prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen and an exploration of the crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s are among 10 books on the nonfiction longlist of the National Book Awards. The National Book Foundation, which presents the awards, also released its poetry longlist Thursday, a day after announcing 10 nominees each in the categories of young people’s literature and books in translation. Judges will next month reduce each list to five finalists, with the winners to be announced Nov. 15.