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The National Book Critics Circle organization announced the finalists for its prestigious annual awards this past Saturday and three Penguin Group (USA) books were among the finalists:

Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Riverhead) in the Fiction Category

In addition to this prestigious nomination from the NBCC, to date, Junot Díaz has also received many other honors. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was named the #1 best book by Time magazine and was chosen by New York Times reviewer Michiko Kakutani as one of the top books of the year. Junot Díaz also won the 2007 John Sargent Prize for First Novel, given by the Mercantile Library Center. In addition, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao appeared on nearly 40 national and regional "Best Books" round-up lists for 2007, including being named the #2 on Amazon.com Editors' top fiction and literature list; one of the top 10 books of the year by People magazine; best novel by New York magazine in their end of year culture issue; featured as a "Best Book" in Entertainment Weekly's "best and worst" of 2007 issue; was one of the Top 10 Books of 2007 on Barnes&Noble.com; and was one of Hudson News' 10 Best Fiction titles of the year. The book was also named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times. In addition, it was heralded as a best book by newspapers all across the country, from The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times to The Boston Globe and The San Francisco Chronicle.

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Penguin Young Readers Group is thrilled to announce that Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson (G.P. Putnam's Sons) has won a Newbery Honor. Named for eighteenth-century British bookseller John Newbery, the Newbery Medal is awarded annually to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.

"Hope is the thing with feathers" starts the poem Frannie is reading in school. Frannie hasn't thought much about hope. There are so many other things to think about. Each day, her friend Samantha seems a bit more "holy." There is a new boy in class everyone is calling the Jesus Boy. And although the new boy looks like a white kid, he says he's not white. Who is he?

During a winter full of surprises, good and bad, Frannie starts seeing a lot of things in a new light-her brother Sean's deafness, her mother's fear, the class bully's anger, her best friend's faith and her own desire for "the thing with feathers."

There Will Be Blood, the movie inspired by Upton Sinclair's novel Oil!, won the 2008 Golden Globe Award for 'Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture-Drama'.

Daniel Day-Lewis was awarded the Golden Globe for his riveting performance as Daniel Plainview, the center of an epic tale about family, greed, religion and oil. Written in 1927, Oil! described the early days of the California oil industry, and proved to be highly entertaining story featuring a cavalcade of characters including senators, oil magnets, Hollywood film starlets, and a crusading evangelist.

View more information on Upton Sinclair's Oil!

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Have you ever heard news about the stock market and been unable to make sense of it? Have you ever felt that stocks are complicated, rather boring, and something that only guys in suits on Wall Street think about?

A lot of people say "yes" to both questions. My mother did. When I was a college student and first took an interest in finance, I talked to her about retirement late one night at our kitchen table. She told me she wasn't sure what to do with her retirement account and asked me if I'd like to have a look. I said yes, and a career was born.

From that day forward, I devoted myself to decoding finance for regular folks who really don't want to spend their time poring over charts and calculating ratios. All most people want is a comfortable retirement, a new house, a college education for their children, and other financial goals.

What I discovered is that there's not as much to it as the industry would have you believe. Think about it. If they can convince you and millions of others into thinking that investing is too complicated, then more people will be willing to turn over their money to professional managers. All that money under management earns fees, so more money means more fees. Simple system, eh?