The Whiting Foundation and the Slate Book Review have joined forces on a new campaign that, according to the two partners, aims to "breathe new life into second novels." This year the initiative, We Second That, recognizes five of the "greatest second novels of the last five years."

The Slate Book Review has now revealed the novels selected by the We Second That judges: novelists Yiyun Li and Colson Whitehead, independent bookseller Sarah McNally, literary editor of newyorker.com Sasha Weiss, and culture editor of Slate Dan Kois. The authors were feted at the David Weeks Studio in New York City on December 10. The evening also included a serenade by artist and singer Vivian Bond, and "miniature museums throughout the space dedicated to each author’s story of perseverance on the road to finishing this particular book."

“We want to pay tribute to these novels’ greatness, sure," said Kois. "But we also want you to buy and read them.”

Sarah McNally chose The Book of Night Women by Marlon James (Riverhead, 2009), calling it “a heartbreaking love story of a man and woman haltingly trying, and mostly failing, to overcome their status of slave and master.” James is also the author of A Brief History of Seven Killings, which landed on PW's Best Books of the Year in 2014.

Yiyun Li’s selected the "poignant" and "fascinating" At Night We Walk in Circles by Daniel Alarcon (Riverhead, 2013). Kois chose Lightning Rods by Helen De Witt (New Directions, 2011), which he called “a true anomaly in fiction: a novel that works beautifully despite having no real characters, no real conflict, no real story."

Sasha Weiss chose Inferno by Eileen Myles (O/R Books, 2010), the poet’s second novel about "learning to live, write and love in a bygone New York." And lastly, Colson Whitehead called his selection, Akhil Sharma’s Family Life, “mesmerizing."

The new campaign got its start when Kois contacted Courtney Hodell, director of the Whiting Writer's Awards, which recognizes emerging authors, with the suggestion to do something to single out second novels after he noticed a tweet from novelist Porochista Khakpour "bemoaning how often they are overlooked."

"Our trustees loved the idea," continued Hodell. "Whiting helps writers at start of career, and struggling with indifferent media, a crowded marketplace, and stretched-thin publishers -- as many second novelists do -- is definitely an emerging-writer issue. We want to make it possible for people to have long, rich careers, and if they stall out at the second novel, that might never happen."

For Kois's part, he is "always looking" for reasons to direct Slate's book coverage back in time, to find titles that people should have read, but didn't. "Often that means a piece about a 50-year-old book," said Kois. "But at the pace the cultural marketplace moves at these days, books that got missed six months ago might as well have come out in 1964, and I liked the idea of pushing back a little against the ephemerality of the publishing experience.”