New York Inspires Two of the Big National Book Award Winner

Let the Great World Spin, a novel about New York City life in the 1970s, and The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt were the big winners at the 60th annual National Book Awards on Wednesday. And what do they have in common? They both have roots in New York, New York.

The former, by Colum McCann, won the fiction award and the latter, by T.J. Stiles, took home the nonfiction.

McCann's story portrayed the decay of The Big Apple through the lives of 10 ordinary people while Stiles mapped out the life of Vanderbilt from his origins in New York to his rise to success in the transportation business.

"Stiles captures Cornelius Vanderbilt as a person and as a force who shaped the transportation revolution, all but reinvented unbridled American capitalism, and left his mark not only all over New York City but, for better or worse, all over our economic landscape," the judges said, according to Reuters.com.

Among other winners were Phillip Hoose's Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice for the Young People's Literature award and Keith Waldrop's Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy for the Poetry award.

Each winner received $10,000.