Around the Word

Roll out the red carpet: today we've got winners, finalists, and some superlatives in the world of writing.

• Punk singer Patti Smith rocked the National Book Awards last night by winning the prize in non-fiction for her memoir, Just Kids. As she accepted the award, Smith blessed the beauty of the printed page, pleading—to the world at large?—never to "abandon the book." Both she and non-fiction finalist Megan K. Stack (Every Man in This Village Is a Liar) gave GalleyCat fitness advice: push that pencil! Smith compared writing to exercise, and recommends reading as a cure for writer's block. Stack, an international war correspondent, urges daily journal-writing as a way to tone your scribbling muscles.

• "Hell is empty, and all the devils are here!" That is, they're all on Wall Street, charges a new book on the financial crisis. New York Times columnist Joe Nocera teamed up with The Smartest Guys in the Room co-author Bethany McLean to heap blame on the vivid (and lurid) characters in those Manhattan boardrooms. The book, All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis, has garnered fiendishly good reviews, and won a renegade award from financial columnist Don McNay, who dubbed it the "Best Business Book of the Year" in the Huffington Post. Have any of you peered into the infernal abyss (or picked up the book)? What did you think?