We’ve got freshly announced National Book Award and Man Booker finalist lists to discuss, so we give our impressions on what we’re seeing, how these lists relates to the broad Book Conversation that’s been happening throughout the year, and how we feel the winners might shake out. It offers a nice foundation for our other topic, a look at a recent attempt by NYMag/Vulture to create an early twenty-first century canon. The task is obviously impossible, but we talk about their methodology, and share our own thoughts on what might define the critical examination of books from this era in literary history.