Salman Rushdie and Miranda July are among the finalists for this year's National Book Awards, alongside notable authors such as Percival Everett, Hisham Matar, and Kaveh Akbar. Rushdie, who is nominated for the first time, is in the running for the non-fiction category with his acclaimed memoir, "Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder." The memoir details the harrowing experience of the 2022 stabbing that resulted in the loss of vision in one eye and impaired use of a hand. The Observer's Rachel Cooke praised the book as "extraordinary."