Los Angeles Times Book Awards 1980-2009

2010 Finalists
2010 Robert Kirsch Award
Robert Kirsch, whose idea became the inspiration for the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, was the newspaper’s book critic from 1952 until his death in 1980. In addition to writing criticism, Kirsch was a novelist, editor and teacher.

Winner Beverly Cleary

2010 Innovator’s Award
The Innovator’s Award recognizes the people and institutions that are doing cutting edge work to bring books, publishing and storytelling into the future, whether in terms of new business models, new technologies or new applications of narrative art.

Winner
Powell’s Books, Portland, Oregon

Biography Finalists
Miranda Carter, George, Nicholas and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I
Selina Hastings, The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham (Random House)
Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience & Redemption
Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22: A Memoir (TWELVE/Hachette Book Group)
Edmund Morris, Colonel Roosevelt (Random House)

Current Interest Finalists
Jonathan Alter, The Promise: President Obama, Year One (Simon & Schuster)
Sebastian Junger, War (TWELVE/Hachette Book Group)
Michael Lewis, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine (W. W. Norton & Company)
Joe Nocera & Bethany McLean, All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis
Patti Smith, Just Kids (Ecco/HarperCollins)

Fiction Finalists
Rick Bass, Nashville Chrome (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Richard Bausch, Something is Out There: Stories (Knopf)
Jennifer Egan, A Visit From the Goon Squad (Knopf)
Jonathan Franzen, Freedom (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Frederick Reiken, Day for Night (Reagan Arthur Books/Hachette Book Group)

Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction Finalists
Peter Bognanni, The House of Tomorrow (Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam)
Leslie Jamison, The Gin Closet (Free Press/Simon & Schuster)
Michael Sledge, The More I Owe You (Counterpoint)
Christine Sneed, Portraits of a Few People I’ve Made Cry: Stories (University of Massachusetts Press)
Tatjana Soli, The Lotus Eaters (St. Martin’s Press)

Graphic Novel Finalists
Adam Hines, Duncan the Wonder Dog: Show One (Adhouse Books)
Dash Shaw, Bodyworld (Pantheon)
Karl Stevens, The Lodger (KSA Publishing)
C. Tyler, You’ll Never Know, Book Two: Collateral Damage (Fantagraphics)
Jim Woodring, Weathercraft (Fantagraphics)

History Finalists
Ron Chernow, Washington: A Life (The Penguin Press)
John W. Dower, Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor/Hiroshima/9-11/Iraq
Susan Dunn, Roosevelt’s Purge: How FDR Fought To Change the Democratic Party
Thomas Powers,The Killing of Crazy Horse (Knopf)
Steven Solomon,Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization (HarperCollins)

Mystery / Thriller Finalists
Tom Franklin, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter (William Morrow)
Tana French, Faithful Place (Viking)
Laura Lippman, I’d Know You Anywhere (William Morrow)
Stuart Neville, Collusion (SoHo Press)
Kelli Stanley, City of Dragons (Minotaur Books/A Thomas Dunne Book)

Poetry Finalists
Henri Cole, Pierce the Skin: Selected Poems, 1982-2007 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Maxine Kumin, Where I Live: New & Selected Poems 1990-2010
Yehoshua November, God’s Optimism (Main Street Rag)
Craig Santos Perez, From Unincorporated Territory {Saina}, (Omnidawn)
Ed Roberson, To See the Earth Before the End of the World, (Wesleyan University Press)

Science & Technology Finalists
Oren Harman, The Price of Altruism: George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness (W. W. Norton & Company)
Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (Scribner)
Naomi Oreskes & Erik M. Conway, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming (Bloomsbury USA)
Lauren Redniss, Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout (It Books/HarperCollins)
Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Crown)

Young Adult Literature Finalists
Marc Aronson & Marina Budhos, Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom and Science
Stephanie Hemphill, Wicked Girls: A Novel of the Salem Witch Trials
Jonathan Stroud, The Ring of Solomon 
Megan Whalen Turner, A Conspiracy of Kings (Greenwillow/HarperCollins)
Rick Yancey, The Curse of the Wendigo (The Monstrumologist)

The winners of the 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, including the first graphic novel award, are:

Biography: Linda Gordon for Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits (Norton)
Current Interest: Dave Eggers for Zeitoun (McSweeney's)
Fiction: Rafael Yglesias, for A Happy Marriage (Scribner)
Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction: Philipp Meyer for American Rust
Graphic Novel: David Mazzucchelli for Asterios Polyp (Pantheon)
History: Kevin Starr for Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance 1950–1963
Mystery/Thriller: Stuart Neville for The Ghosts of Belfast (Soho Press)
Poetry: Brenda Hillman for Practical Water (Wesleyan University Press)
Science and Technology: Graham Farmelo for The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom
Young Adult Literature: Elizabeth Partridge for Marching for Freedom: Walk Together Children and Don't You Grow Weary

In addition, Evan S. Connell won the Robert Kirsch Award lifetime achievement award, and Dave Eggers won the first Innovator's Award.

The awards were announced during the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, held this past weekend. For finalists and other information, go to latimesbookprizes.com.

Winners of the 2008 Los Angeles Times Book Awards were named last Friday at "a scaled-down awards ceremony . . . with as much enthusiasm and humor as any of the more grandly produced affairs of recent years," the Times reported.

The winners included:

Biography: Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching by Paula J. Giddings
Current Interest: Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency by Barton Gellman
Fiction: Home: A Novel by Marilynne Robinson
Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction: Finding Nouf: A Novel by Zoe Ferraris
History: Hitler's Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe by Mark Mazower
Mystery/Thriller--Envy the Night by Michael Koryta
Poetry: Watching the Spring Festival: Poems by Frank Bidart
Science and Technology: The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics by Leonard Susskind
Young Adult Literature: Nation by Terry Pratchett

Robert Kirsch Award Winner: Robert Alter (mostly biblical books, what is this award?)

2008 Shortlist:
Biography:
H.W. Brands, "A Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt"
Ernest Freeberg, "Democracy's Prisoner: Eugene V. Debs, the Great War, and the Right to Dissent"
Paula J. Giddings, "Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching"
Jon Meacham, "American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House"
Jackie Wullschlager, "Chagall: A Biography"

Current Interest:
Steve Coll, "The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century"
Dexter Filkins, "The Forever War"
Barton Gellman, "Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency"
Jane Mayer, "The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals"
Jill Bolte Taylor, "My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey"

Fiction:
Sebastian Barry, "The Secret Scripture"
Richard Price, "Lush Life"

Marilynne Robinson, "Home"

Joan Silber, "The Size of the World"

Marisa Silver, "The God of War"

Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction:
Uwem Akpan, "Say You're One of Them"
Zoe Ferraris, "Finding Nouf"
Sadie Jones, "The Outcast"
Roma Tearne, "Mosquito"

David Wroblewski, "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle"

History:
Michael Dobbs, "One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War"
Drew Gilpin Faust, "This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War"
Mark Mazower, "Hitler's Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe"
Thomas J. Sugrue, "Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North"
Rick Wartzman, "Obscene in the Extreme: The Burning and Banning of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath"

Mystery/Thriller:
Colin Harrison, "The Finder"
Michael Koryta, "Envy the Night"
Simon Lewis, "Bad Traffic: An Inspector Jian Novel"
Nina Revoyr, "The Age of Dreaming"

Tom Rob Smith, "Child 44"

Poetry
Frank Bidart, "Watching the Spring Festival: Poems"
Jorie Graham, "Sea Change: Poems"
Marie Howe, "The Kingdom of Ordinary Time: Poems"
Cole Swensen, "Ours"
Connie Voisine, "Rare High Meadow of Which I Might Dream"

Science & Technology:
Avery Gilbert, "What the Nose Knows: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life"
Kenneth R. Miller, "Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul"
Martin J.S. Rudwick, "Worlds Before Adam: The Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Reform"
Leonard Susskind, "The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics"
Carl Zimmer, "Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life"

Young Adult Literature:
Candace Fleming, "The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary"

Neil Gaiman, "The Graveyard Book"

Oscar Hijuelos, "Dark Dude"

Nate Powell, "Swallow Me Whole"

Terry Pratchett, "Nation"

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Since 1980, the Los Angeles Times has awarded a set of annual book prizes. The Prizes "currently have nine single-title categories: biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction (the Art Seidenbaum Award added in 1991), history, mystery/thriller (category added in 2000), poetry, science and technology (category added in 1989), and young adult fiction (category added in 1998). In addition, the Robert Kirsch Award is presented annually to a living author with a substantial connection to the American West whose contribution to American letters deserves special recognition".

The Book Prize program was founded by the late Art Seidenbaum, a Los Angeles Times book editor from 1978 to 1985; an award named after him was added a year after his death in 1990. The Robert Kirsch Award is named after the longtime Times book critic who died in 1980. Works are eligible during the year of their first US publication in English, though English does not have to be the original language of the work. The author of each winning book and the Kirsch Award recipient receives a citation and $1,000.


Previous Winners:

Biography

2007: Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore
2006: Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler
2005: Matisse the Master: A Life of Henri Matisse, the Conquest of Colour, 1909-1954 by Hilary Spurling
2004: de Kooning: An American Master by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan
2003: American Empire: Roosevelt’s Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization by Neil Smith
2002: Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. 3 by Robert A. Caro
2001: Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris
2000: Jefferson Davis, American by William J. Cooper, Jr.
1999: Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
1998: Lindbergh by A. Scott Berg
1997: Whittaker Chambers: A Biography by Sam Tanenhaus

1996: Angela's Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt

1995: Under My Skin: Volume One of My Autobiography, to 1949 by Doris Lessing
1994: Shot in the Heart by Mikal Gilmore
1993; Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer by John Mack Faragher
1992: Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume One 1884-1993 by Blanche Wiesen Cook
1991: Righteous Pilgrim: The Life and Times of Harold L. Ickes, 1874-1952 by T.H. Watkins
1990: A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt by Geoffrey C. Ward
1989: This Boy's Life: A Memoir by Tobias Wolff
1988: Nora: The Real Life of Molly Bloom by Brenda Maddox
1987: Hemingway by Kenneth S. Lynn
1986: Alexander Pope: A Life by Maynard Mack
1985: Solzhenitsyn by Michael Scammell
1984: The Nightmare of Reason by Ernst Pawel
1983: The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House by Seymour Hersh
1982: Waldo Emerson: A Biography by Gay Wilson Allen
1981: Mornings on Horseback by David McCullough
1980: (Biography award concurrent with this year's History award)


Current interest

2007: Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point by Elizabeth D. Samet
2006: Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance by Ian Buruma
2005: Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War, by Anthony Shadid
2004: Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America and the New Face of American War by Evan Wright
2003: The New Chinese Empire -- And What It Means for the United States by Ross Terrill
2002: Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex by Judith Levine
2001: Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
2000: Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War by Frances FitzGerald
1999: Sidewalk (with Photographs by Ovie Carter) by Mitchell Duneier
1998: We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch
1997: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman
1996: Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War by Peter Maass
1995: Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy Who Discovered He Was Black by Gregory Howard Williams
1994: Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger
1993: Mexican Americans: The Ambivalent Minority by Peter Skerry
1992: The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama
1991: Why Americans Hate Politics: The Death of the Democratic Process by E.J. Dionne, Jr.
1990: Disappearing through the Skylight: Culture and Technology in the Twentieth Century by O.B. Hardison, Jr.
1989: Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-1963 by Taylor Branch
1988: Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country by William Greider
1987: The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins
1986: Move Your Shadow: South Africa, Black and White by Joseph Lelyveld
1985: Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life by Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler and Steven M. Tipton
1984: Cities and the Wealth of Nations by Jane Jacobs
1983: Lost in the Cosmos by Walker Percy
1982: The Fate of the Earth by Jonathan Schell
1981: Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number by Jacobo Timerman
1980: Without Fear or Favor by Harrison Salisbury [Winner of the General Award--no Current Interest Award this year]


Fiction

2008: Home by Marilynne Robinson

2007: Be Near Me by Andrew O'Hagan
2006: A Woman in Jerusalem by A. B. Yehoshua
2005: Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel García Márquez
2004: The Master by Colm Tóibín
2003: Train: A Novel by Pete Dexter
2002: Atonement: A Novel by Ian McEwan
2001: Why Did I Ever by Mary Robison
2000: Assorted Fire Events: Stories by David Means
1999: Freedom Song: Three Novels by Amit Chaudhuri
1998: The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald
1997: In the Rogue Blood by James Carlos Blake
1996: A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
1995: The Blue Afternoon by William Boyd
1994: Remembering Babylon by David Malouf

1993: Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver

1992: Maus II, A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman
1991: White People by Allan Gurganus
1990: Lantern Slides by Edna O'Brien
1989: The Heart of the Country by Fay Weldon
1988: Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Marquez
1987: Fools Crow by James Welch

1986: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

1985: Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich

1984: The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
1983: Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally
1982: A Flag for Sunrise by Robert Stone
1981: The White Hotel by D.M. Thomas
1980: The Second Coming by Walker Percy


History

2008: Hitler’s Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe by Mark Mazower
2007: Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner
2006: The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright
2005: Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves by Adam Hochschild
2004: Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism by Geoffrey R. Stone
2003: An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America by Henry Wiencek
2002: Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Michael B. Oren
2001: Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus by Rick Perlstein
2000: The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach by Alice Kaplan
1999: Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II by John W. Dower
1998: The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity by Roy Porter
1997: A People's Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution by Orlando Figes
1996: Black Sea by Neal Ascherson
1995: Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America by Jackson Lears
1994: Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 by George Chauncey
1993: New Worlds, Ancient Texts: The Power of Tradition and the Shock of Discovery by Anthony Grafton
1992: Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families under Fascism by Alexander Stille
1991: The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America by Nicholas Lemann
1990: The Quest for El Cid by Richard Fletcher
1989: An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood by Neal Gabler
1988: Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 by Eric Foner
1987: [No award in 1987]
1986: The First Socialist Society: A History of the Soviet Union from Within by Geoffrey Hosking
1985: Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Bighorn by Evan S. Connell
1984: The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History by Robert Darnton
1983: The Wheels of Commerce by Fernand Braudel
1982: The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution, 1895-1980 by Jonathan D. Spence
1981: Land of Savagery/Land of Promise by Ray Allen Billington
1980: Walter Lippmann and the American Century by Ronald Steel


Mystery/thriller

2008: Envy the Night by Michael Koryta
2007: The Indian Bride by Karin Fossum, translated by Charlotte Barslund
2006: Echo Park by Michael Connelly
2005: Legends by Robert Little
2004: Tijuana Straits by Kem Nunn
2003: Soul Circus by George P. Pelecanos
2002: Hell to Pay by George P. Pelecanos
2001: Silent Joe by T. Jefferson Parker
2000: A Place of Execution by Val McDermid
1999: [Award added in 2000]


Science and technology

2008: The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics by Leonard Susskind
2007: I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter
2006: In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind by Eric R. Kandel
2005: Before the Fallout: From Marie Curie to Hiroshima by Diana Preston
2004: The Whale and the Supercomputer: On the Northern Front of Climate Change by Charles Wohlforth
2003: Protecting America’s Health: The FDA, Business, and One Hundred Years of Regulation by Philip J. Hilts
2002: Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA by Brenda Maddox
2001: The Invention of Clouds: How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies by Richard Hamblyn
2000: The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine by James Le Fanu, M.D.
1999: Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love by Dava Sobel
1998: Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce by Douglas Starr
1997: How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker
1996: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan
1995: Naturalist by Edward O. Wilson
1994: The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time by Jonathan Weiner
1993: Fuzzy Logic: The Discovery of a Revolutionary Computer Technology -- and How It Is Changing Our World by Daniel McNeill and Paul Freiberger
1992: The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal by Jared Diamond
1991: The Truth about Chernobyl by Grigori Medvedev
1990: Patenting the Sun: Polio and the Salk Vaccine by Jane S. Smith
1989: Peacemaking among Primates by Frans de Waal
1988: [Award added in 1989]


Poetry

* 2008: Watching the Spring Festival: Poems by Frank Bidart
* 2007: Old Heart: Poems by Stanley Plumly (W. W. Norton)
* 2006: Ooga-Booga by Frederick Seidel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
* 2005: Refusing Heaven: Poems by Jack Gilbert (Alfred A. Knopf)
* 2004: Inner Voices: Selected Poems, 1963-2003 by Richard Howard
* 2003: Collected Later Poems by Anthony Hecht (Alfred A. Knopf)
* 2002: The Watercourse: Poems by Cynthia Zarin (Alfred A. Knopf)
* 2001: The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos by Anne Carson
* 2000: The Throne of Labdacus by Gjertrud Schnackenberg (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
* 1999: Repair: Poems by C.K. Williams (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
* 1998: Mysteries of Small Houses by Alice Notley (Penguin Books)
* 1997: Black Zodiac by Charles Wright (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
* 1996: Mixed Company by Alan Shapiro (The University of Chicago Press)
* 1995: The Inferno of Dante by Robert Pinsky (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
* 1994: The Angel of History by Carolyn Forché (HarperCollins)
* 1993: My Alexandria by Mark Doty (University of Illinois Press)
* 1992: An Atlas of the Difficult World: Poems 1988-1991 by Adrienne Rich
* 1991: What Work Is by Philip Levine (Alfred A. Knopf)
* 1990: The Color of Mesabi Bones by John Caddy (Milkweed)
* 1989: The One Day: A Poem in Three Parts by Donald Hall (Ticknor & Fields/
* 1988: New and Collected Poems by Richard Wilbur (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich)
* 1987: Partial Accounts: New and Selected Poems by William Meredith (Alfred A.
* 1986: Collected Poems, 1948-1984 by Derek Walcott (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
* 1985: Cross Ties by X.J. Kennedy (University of Georgia Press)
* 1984: The Maximus Poems by Charles Olson (University of California Press)
* 1983: The Changing Light at Sandover by James Merrill (Atheneum)
* 1982: Plutonian Ode and Other Poems, 1977-1980 by Allen Ginsberg (City Lights)
* 1981: Three Pieces by Ntozake Shange (St. Martin's Press)
* 1980: Kill the Messenger by Robert Kelly (Black Sparrow)


Young adult fiction

* 2008: Nation by Terry Pratchett

* 2007: A Darkling Plain by Philip Reeve

* 2006: Tyrell by Coe Booth
* 2005: You and You and You by Per Nilsson, translated from the Swedish by Tara Chace
* 2004: Doing It by Melvin Burgess
* 2003: A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly
* 2002: Feed by M.T. Anderson
* 2001: The Land by Mildred D. Taylor
* 2000: Miracle's Boys by Jacqueline Woodson
* 1999: Frenchtown Summer by Robert Cormier

* 1998: Rules of the Road by Joan Bauer

* 1997: [Award added in 1998]


The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction

* 2008: Finding Nouf by Zoe Ferraris
* 2007: The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu
* 2006: White Ghost Girls by Alice Greenway
* 2005: Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala
* 2004: Harbor by Lorraine Adams
* 2003: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
* 2002: Prague by Arthur Phillips
* 2001: The Dark Room by Rachel Seiffert
* 2000: The Romantics by Pankaj Mishra
* 1999: Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout
* 1998: Kalimantaan by C. S. Godshalk
* 1997: Don't Erase Me: Stories by Carolyn Ferrell
* 1996: The Smell of Apples by Mark Behr
* 1995: American Studies by Mark Merlis
* 1994: The Year of the Frog by Martin M. Šimecka
* 1993: Love by Paul Kafka
* 1992: High Cotton by Darryl Pinckney
* 1991: Pangs of Love by David Wong Louie
* 1990: (Award added in 1991)

The Robert Kirsch Award
* 2008 Robert Alter
* 2007 Maxine Hong Kingston
* 2006 William Kittredge
* 2005 Joan Didion
* 2004 Tony Hillerman
* 2003 Ishmael Reed
* 2002 Larry McMurtry
* 2001 Tillie Olsen
* 2000 Lawrence Ferlinghetti
* 1999 Ursula K. Le Guin
* 1998 John Sanford
* 1997 Ray Bradbury
* 1996 Gary Snyder
* 1995 Stephen J. Pyne
* 1994 Brian Moore
* 1993 Carolyn See
* 1992 Diane Johnson
* 1991 Ken Kesey
* 1990 Czeslaw Milosz
* 1989 Karl Shapiro
* 1988 Thom Gunn
* 1987 Paul Horgan
* 1986 Kay Boyle
* 1985 Janet Lewis
* 1984 Christopher Isherwood
* 1983 M.F.K. Fisher
* 1982 Ross Macdonald
* 1981 Wright Morris
* 1980 Wallace Stegner

Guardian First Book Award (1999-2010)

From Guardian.co.uk accessed 9/4/10

2010 longlist:
Fiction
Mr Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt
Boxer, Beetle by Ned Beauman
Things We Didn't See Coming by Steven Amsterdam
Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto by Maile Chapman
Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed

Non-fiction
Bomber County: The Lost Airmen of World War Two by Daniel Swift (Hamish Hamilton)
Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz (Portobello)
Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination... by Alexandra Harris --Winner!
Curfewed Night: A Frontline Memoir of Life, Love and War in Kashmir by Basharat Peer

Poetry
The Floating Man by Katharine Towers

The 2009 longlist:
The Secret Lives of Buildings by Edward Hollis
Direct Red by Gabriel Weston
The Strangest Man by Graham Farmelo
A Swamp Full of Dollars by Michael Peel
The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton
The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey
The Girl With Glass Feet by Ali Shaw
The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen
An Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah -- Winner!
The Missing by Siân Hughes

Previous Winners:
Guardian First Book Award winners and shortlisted books

* 1999 Philip Gourevitch, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families

* 2000 Zadie Smith, White Teeth

* 2001 Chris Ware, Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth, graphic novel
o Miranda Carter, Anthony Blunt: His Lives biography
o David Edmonds and John Eidinow, Wittgenstein's Poker, non-fiction
o Glen David Gold, Carter Beats The Devil, fiction
o Rachel Seiffert, The Dark Room, fiction

* 2002 Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated
o Alexandra Fuller, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight
o Hari Kunzru, The Impressionist
o Oliver Morton, Mapping Mars
o Sandra Newman, The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done

* 2003 Robert Macfarlane, Mountains of the Mind
o Monica Ali, Brick Lane
o DBC Pierre, Vernon God Little
o Paul Broks, Into the Silent Land
o Anna Funder, Stasiland

* 2004 Armand Marie Leroi, Mutants: On the Form, Varieties and Errors of Human Body
o Matthew Hollis, Ground Water (Bloodaxe)
o David Bezmozgis Natasha and Other Stories (Cape)
Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell 
Rory Stewart The Places in Between

* 2005 Alexander Masters, Stuart: A Life Backwards
o Reza Aslan, No god but God
o Richard Benson, The Farm
o Suketu Mehta, Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found
o Rattawut Lapcharoensap, Sightseeing

* 2006 Yiyun Li, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers
o Lorraine Adams, Harbor
o Clare Allan, Poppy Shakespeare
o Hisham Matar, In the Country of Men
o Carrie Tiffany, Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living

* 2007 Dinaw Mengestu , Children of the Revolution
o Tahmima Anam, A Golden Age
o Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City
o Rosemary Hill, God's Architect
Catherine O'Flynn, What Was Lost

* 2008 Alex Ross, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century
Mohammed Hanif, A Case of Exploding Mangoes
Owen Matthews, Stalin's Children
Ross Raisin, God's Own Country
Steve Toltz, A Fraction of the Whole

Chicago Tribune Literary Awards

Compiled from information gathered from the Chicago Tribune and from Wikipedia

Chicago Tribune Literary Prize
As part of a continued dedication to literacy and the literary arts, the Chicago Tribune is pleased to present the Chicago Tribune Literary Prize. This lifetime achievement award is given to an author whose body of work has had great impact on American society. Each year, a panel of editors will select a recipient based on the scope and significance of their work. The honor will go to an author whose novels, plays, or stories have touched their audience and changed the face of literature.

2010 Winner: Sam Shepard
Past winners include Arthur Miller, Tom Wolfe, Margaret Atwood, and August Wilson.

Chicago Tribune's Heartland Prizes
Chicago Tribune's Heartland prizes are for a work of nonfiction and a novel. Two annual prizes, of $7,500 each, honor a novel and a book of nonfiction embodying the spirit of the nation's Heartland. The Heartland prizes were established in 1988 to recognize words that reinforce and perpetuate the values of heartland America. The awards, however, are not limited to Midwestern writers or regional subjects.

Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize — Fiction
2010: E.O. Wilson for Anthill
2009: Jayne Anne Phillips, for Lark and Termite
2008: Aleksandar Hemon, for The Lazarus Project
2007: Robert Olmstead, for Coal Black Horse
2006: Louise Erdrich, for The Painted Drum
2005: Marilynne Robinson, for Gilead
2004: Ward Just, for An Unfinished Season
2003: Scott Turow, for Reversible Errors
2002: Alice Sebold, for The Lovely Bones
2001: Mona Simpson, for Off Keck Road
2000: Jeffrey Renard Allen, for Rails Under My Back
1998: Jane Hamilton, for The Short History of a Prince
1997: Charles Frazier, for Cold Mountain
1994: Maxine Clair, for Rattlebone
1993: Annie Proulx, for The Shipping News
1991: Jane Smiley, for A Thousand Acres
1989: Kaye Gibbons, for Ellen Foster
1988: Eric Larsen, for An American Memory

Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize — Non-Fiction
2010: Rebecca Skloot for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
2009: Nick Reding, for Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town[6]
2008: Garry Wills, for Head and Heart: American Christianities and What the Gospels Meant[7]
2007: Orville Vernon Burton, for The Age of Lincoln
2006: Taylor Branch, for At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-1968[8]
2005: Kevin Boyle, for Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age
2004: Ann Patchett, for Truth and Beauty: A Friendship
2003: Paul Hendrickson, for Sons of Mississippi: A Story of Race and Its Legacy
2002: Studs Terkel, for Will the Circle Be Unbroken?: Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith
2001: Louis Menand, for The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America[9]
2000: Zachary Karabell, for The Last Campaign: How Harry Truman Won the 1948 Election
1998: Alex Kotlowitz, for The Other Side of the River: A Story of Two Towns, A Death, and America's Dilemma
1997: Thomas Lynch, for The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade
1995: Richard Stern, for A Sistermony
1994: Henry Louis Gates, Jr., for Colored People: A Memoir
1992: William Cronon, for Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West
1991: Melissa Fay Greene, for Praying for Sheetrock: A Work of Non-Fiction
1990: Michael Dorris. The Broken Cord: A Family's Ongoing Struggle with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

Chicago Tribune Young Adult Book Prize
The Chicago Tribune Young Adult Fiction Prize will honor the author of a book or body of work that the Chicago Tribune deems worthy for a young adult audience. One annual prize of $5,000 will be given to the author. Books or bodies of work in consideration should address themes especially relevant to adolescents, and speak to their role and significance in society.

2010: Walter Dean Myers
Past winners include Lois Lowry, Richard Peck, Blue Balliett, and Linda Sue Park.

Nelson Algren Awards
The Nelson Algren awards are for short fiction. One $5,000 prize and three runner-up prizes of $1,500 will be awarded. The award is given in memory of Chicago author Nelson Algren.

Independent foreign fiction prize (2009-10)

2010 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize Longlist
from Three Percent - article by E.J. Van Lanen

So, even though we’re in danger right now of becoming a blog that only writes about book prizes (or maybe I’m only feeling that way because the Best Translated Book Award has been on my mind for so long), we would be remiss if we didn’t make mention of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize Longlist:

* Boris Akunin The Coronation (translated by Andrew Bromfield from the Russian)
* Ketil Bjørnstad To Music (Deborah Dawkin & Erik Skuggevik; Norwegian)
* Hassan Blasim The Madman of Freedom Square (Jonathan Wright; Arabic) Comma Press
* Philippe Claudel Brodeck’s Report (John Cullen; French) MacLehose Press  --Winner!
* Julia Franck The Blind Side of the Heart (Anthea Bell; German) Harvill Secker  --shortlist
* Pietro Grossi Fists (Howard Curtis; Italian)   --shortlist
* Elias Khoury Yalo (Humphrey Davies; Arabic) MacLehose Press
* Jonathan Littell The Kindly Ones (Charlotte Mandell; French) Chatto & Windus
* Alain Mabanckou Broken Glass (Helen Stevenson; French)   --shortlist
* Javier Marías Your Face Tomorrow, Vol 3: Poison, Shadow and Farewell (Margaret Jull Costa; Spanish
* Yoko Ogawa The Housekeeper and the Professor (Stephen Snyder; Japanese) Harvill Secker
* Claudia Piñeiro Thursday Night Widows (Miranda France; Spanish) Bitter Lemon Press
* Sankar Chowringhee (Arunava Sinha; Bengali)   --shortlist
* Rafik Schami The Dark Side of Love (Anthea Bell; German)   --shortlist
* Bahaa Taher Sunset Oasis (Humphrey Davies; Arabic) Sceptre

There are a few things to note: Although the bigger presses, or big name presses, are well represented, it’s interesting to note how much of the heavy lifting for translation in the UK is done by smaller independent presses (Comma, Maia, Bitter Lemon); there are three books (three!) that are translated from Arabic, which has to be some kind of record; and Humphrey Davies and Anthea Bell have the knack—two nominated titles each.

2009 Info

The Armies by Evelio Rosero, translated from the Spanish by Anne McLean, won the Independent Foreign Fiction prize. Author and translator share the £10,000 (US$15,181) award.

Boyd Tonkin praised the winner in the Independent: "Gentle in voice but ferocious in impact, The Armies tells the story of the destruction of a small highland town by the rival bands of soldiers, guerrillas and paramilitaries that have plagued rural Colombia for so many bitter years. Immaculately pitched and paced, Anne McLean's English version does it lavish justice."

Two Colombian authors, Evelio Rosero and Juan Gabriel Vásquez, are among the six writers shortlisted for the £10,000 (US$14,439) Independent foreign fiction prize, the Guardian reported. The award acknowledges both novelist and translator, dividing the prize money equally between the two.

The Independent prize shortlist:
Voice Over by Céline Curiol, translated by Sam Richard from the French
Beijing Coma: A Novel by Ma Jian, translated by Flora Drew from the Chinese
The Siege by Ismail Kadare, translated by David Bellos from the Albanian
The Armies by Evelio Rosero, translated by Anne McLean from the Spanish
The Informers by Juan Gabriel Vasquez, translated by Anne McLean from the Spanish
Friendly Fire by A B Yehoshua, translated by Stuart Schoffman from the Hebrew

Telegraph's top new novelists for 2010

"How do you spot a rising star, that new voice in literature that will really make an impression?" asked the Telegraph, then answered the question by choosing its "top new novelists for 2010." The list includes:

The Privileges by Jonathan Dee

Chef by Jaspreet Singh

Rupture by Simon Lelic

This Bleeding City by Alex Preston

Day for Night by Frederick Reiken

Secret Son by Laila Lalami

Serious Men by Manu Joseph - can't find author or title on Goodreads 1/22/10

Cross Country Murder Song by Philip Wilding

Ruby’s Spoon by Anna Lawrence Pietroni

Children of the Sun by Max Schaefer - can't find author or title on Goodreads 1/22/10
Tiger Hills by Sarita Mandanna - can't find author or title on Goodreads 1/22/10

Christian Science Monitor Best Fiction of 2009

Christian Science Monitor accessed 121609
Best books of 2009: fiction

What we here at the Monitor liked best in 2009.

Lark and Termite By Jayne Anne Phillips
Jayne Anne Phillips’s latest – set in the 1950s, split between Korea and West Virignia – is a rich, deeply poetic tale of extraordinary familial love. (Monitor review on 1/13/09)

The Help By Kathryn Stockett
In 1960s Jackson, Miss., a young white woman decides to interview the black maids in her hometown of Jackson, Miss. (Monitor review on 3/4/09)

The Weight of Heaven By Thrity Umrigar
Devastated by the loss of their child, an American couple try to rebuild their lives in India. (Monitor review on 4/10/09)

Woodsburner By John Pipkin
When Henry David Thoreau set the Concord woods on fire. (Monitor review on 5/25/09)

The Thing Around Your Neck By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
A powerful, deftly assembled collection of short stories about Nigerians caught in the pull between Nigeria and the West. (Monitor review on 7/30/09)

Let the Great World Spin By Colum McCann
This gritty but lyrical novel follows the lives of various New Yorkers who watched Philippe Petit walk a tightrope between the World Trade Center towers on Aug. 7, 1974. (Monitor review on 7/24/09)

The Anthologist By Nicholson Baker
A poet’s severe writer’s block becomes the excuse for Nicholson Baker’s daft, brilliant, hilarious novel.(Monitor review on 9/28/09)

Love and Summer By William Trevor
A gentle, masterly tale of love and betrayal in a small Irish farm town. (Monitor review on 9/26/09)

A Gate at the Stairs By Lorrie Moore
Family, race, and religion mingle in this incisive coming-of-age novel about a college girl disillusioned by what she sees of adult life. (Monitor review on 9/18/09)

Mathilda Savitch By Victor Lodato
A sad, sharp, precocious teen struggles for a place in her parents’ hearts – and the world – after losing her older sibling. (Monitor review on 9/12/09)

The Children’s Book By A.S. Byatt
In her best novel since “Possession,” A.S. Byatt spins a tale from details of the life of children’s book author Edith Nesbit. (Monitor review on 10/9/09)

Wolf Hall By Hilary Mantel
The winner of this year’s Booker Prize offers a sympathetic and compelling portrayal of Thomas Cromwell, the power behind Henry VIII’s throne. (Monitor on 10/17/09)

Telegraph's Novels of the year (2009)

from The Telegraph accessed 11/30/09
Novels of the year
Lorna Bradbury delves into the best of a notably fine year for fiction, including Hilary Mantel's Booker-winning Wolf Hall, Philip Roth's latest, The Humbling; Sebastian Faulks, Thomas Pynchon, Sarah Waters and A S Byatt also feature.


By Lorna Bradbury
Published: 6:30AM GMT 28 Nov 2009

In a notably strong year for literary fiction, it is striking how many novels have had an eye on the past. Sebastian Barry’s The Secret Scripture (Faber, £7.99), a novel haunted by modern Irish history, won the Costa Book of the Year; Marilynne Robinson’s Home (Virago, £7.99), set in Fifties America but harking back to the events of a century earlier, won the Orange Prize; and the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Herta Müller for her novels about Romanian history. Never has the state of the nation novel – though we have had those, too, in Sebastian Faulks’s occasionally sharp A Week in December (Hutchinson, £18.99) and Amanda Craig’s compassionate Hearts and Minds (Little, Brown, £12.99) – seemed so out of place.

But the novel that has dominated the year is Hilary Mantel’s magnificent Man Booker prize-winning Wolf Hall (Fourth Estate, £18.99), which turned Tudor history on its head by recasting Thomas Cromwell as the hero, and was every bit as good as it promised, delivering a vibrant portrait of the hitherto demonised enforcer who rose from bloodstained origins to serve in the court of Henry VIII. Though rooted in historical research and true to its times, the triumph of the novel is its modern sensibility which keeps it just the right side of pastiche.

In an overwhelmingly historical Booker shortlist, Sarah Waters’s The Little Stranger (Virago, £16.99), a chilling ghost story set in a decaying country mansion in the aftermath of the Second World War, stands out, as does A S Byatt’s The Children’s Book (Chatto & Windus, £18.99), which matches her Possession in its marriage of erudition and sheer readability. Based in part on the lives of the children’s writer E Nesbit and the sculptor Eric Gill, it follows a group of Arts and Crafts families at the turn of the century and shows up the dark side of creativity as well as the terrible carnage of a generation wiped out by the First World War.

This has also been the year of the octogenarian novel, with a clutch of writers producing books up there with their best work. William Trevor’s Love and Summer (Viking, £18.99), a portrait of a doomed love affair in Fifties Ireland, is driven, as ever, by the forces of shame, regret and quiet desperation – and is quite the most moving novel I have read this year. Anita Brookner’s Strangers (Fig Tree, £16.99) is similarly caught up with the past and, like Trevor, Brookner succeeds brilliantly in fashioning a somehow uplifting story out of the debris of human failings. This impressive novel, her 24th, examines a distinctly solitary life – as Brookner’s fans have come to expect – and portrays the twilight of a life with wit and compassion.

Jane Gardam has delighted readers of Old Filth by returning again (after having done so several years ago in a short story, “The People of Privilege Hill”) to the judge Edward Feathers (Filth) in The Man in the Wooden Hat (Chatto & Windus, £14.99). She tells the story this time from the point of view of Filth’s wife, Betty, previously glimpsed only through her husband’s memories, and the result is captivating. If Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn (Viking, £17.99) was one of several startling omissions from the Booker shortlist, it was baffling that The Man in the Wooden Hat didn’t make it even as far as the longlist.

Further afield, there have been fine novels from Lorrie Moore (A Gate at the Stairs, Faber, £16.99), Margaret Atwood (The Year of the Flood, Bloomsbury, £18.99) and Thomas Pynchon (Inherent Vice, Jonathan Cape, £18.99). And the South African novelist J M Coetzee produced the final volume in his trio of fictionalised memoirs, Summertime (Harvill Secker, £17.99). If the first two books, Boyhood and Youth, were relatively straightforward accounts of Coetzee’s early years, this is a much more artful exercise that takes the form of a series of imagined interviews between an English academic writing Coetzee’s biography and a series of people who knew the great novelist in the early Seventies. It is a sly account of the impossibility of the biographer’s art in which Coetzee emerges, in an extraordinarily self-lacerating portrait, as a lacklustre writer and a failed seducer.

At the other end of the seduction spectrum, the great actor hero of Philip Roth’s The Humbling (Jonathan Cape, 12.99) is wildly successful between the sheets. Though elderly and dejected after the disintegration of his acting career, he manages to bed not just a young lesbian but to initiate a threesome with a woman he picks up in a bar. This is every ageing lothario’s fantasy, and well deserves its place on the Bad Sex Award shortlist, but it is redeemed by moments of exquisite writing. A more surprising inclusion for the prize is Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones (Chatto & Windus, £20, tr by Charlotte Mandell), an epic novel written in French by an American Jew in which the Holocaust is retold through the eyes of one of its perpetrators.

The final flourish of excitement this year was with the publication of Vladimir Nabokov’s ultimately disappointing The Original of Laura: a Novel in Fragments (Penguin, £25), the unfinished last offering from the great stylist which has languished in a Swiss vault since his death. But there have been other more fulfilling literary discoveries on offer. The reinvention of the Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño, whose books have sold in vast numbers since his death in 2003, gathered pace with the publication in English of his final work, 2666 (Picador, £8.99, tr by Natasha Wimmer), as well as Amulet (Picador, £14.99, tr by Chris Andrews).

Similarly, numerous novels by the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, who committed suicide in a pact with his second wife in Brazil in 1942, were brought back into print, including a new translation of The Post Office Girl (Sort Of Books, £7.99, tr by Joel Rotenberg) and his memoir The World of Yesterday (Pushkin Press, £20, tr by Anthea Bell). And Suite Francaise (2006), the unfinished sequence of novels by Irène Némirovsky, the French-Russian novelist killed in the Holocaust, was succeeded by the translation of another of her books, The Dogs and the Wolves (Chatto & Windus, £16.99, tr by Sandra Smith). A biography by Olivier Philipponnat and Patrick Lienhardt follows in the spring.

In short stories, Alice Munro’s Too Much Happiness (Chatto & Windus, £17.99) and A L Kennedy’s What Becomes (Jonathan Cape, £16.99) were unsurpassed. Two reworkings of great poets stand out: Rupert Brooke in Jill Dawson’s The Great Lover (Sceptre, £7.99) and John Clare in Adam Foulds’s The Quickening Maze (Jonathan Cape, £12.99).

And at the lighter end of things I recommend the latest volume of Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole diaries, The Prostrate Years (Michael Joseph, £18.99), Elinor Lipman’s The Family Man (Headline, £19.99) and Audrey Niffenegger’s Her Fearful Symmetry (Jonathan Cape, £18.99).

USA Today Book Roundup: Historical Fiction

By Jocelyn McClurg, Deirdre Donahue, Carol Memmott and Korina Lopez, USA TODAY.
In this week's mix: Love and war, the lives of nuns, a Dickens of a novel, and three British women with three different reasons for being in India.

Gifts of War
By Mackenzie Ford
Nan. A. Talese/Doubleday, 447 pp., $26

The best war stories are often love stories, and Mackenzie Ford has come up with a doozy. During the Christmas truce of 1914, a German soldier hands his photo to a young English officer, Hal Montgomery, with a request: Give it to his English girlfriend. After Hal is shot and wounded, he returns to England to find the girl, Sam, who has a baby son. He falls instantly in love and can't bear to tell Sam her German lover is alive. The tension builds as Hal and Sam and baby Will create a life — will the truth ever out? — making for an absorbing, morally complex read. — Jocelyn McClurg

Sacred Hearts
By Sarah Dunant
Random House, 415 pp., $25

With Sacred Hearts, Brit writer Sarah Dunant rounds out her trilogy about women during the Italian Renaissance. In 2003's The Birth of Venus, she dealt with Florentine noblewomen, and in 2006's In the Company of the Courtesan, Venetian prostitutes. Now she explores the lives of nuns in 1570 Ferrara. Alas, Hearts' plot lacks the narrative drive of the first two. A wealthy family imprisons their 16-year-old daughter in a convent against her will after an ill-advised love affair. The girl's rage upends the convent. But this tale about a cloister induces claustrophobia. — Deirdre Donahue

FIND MORE STORIES IN: Mahatma Gandhi

Girl in the Blue Dress: A Novel Inspired by the Life and Marriage of Charles Dickens
By Gaynor Arnold
Crown, 414 pp., $25.99

British novelist Gaynor Arnold, inspired by letters Dickens wrote to his wife, Catherine, spins a marvelously credible tale of what the Dickens marriage might have been like through the fictional story of Dodo Gibson, the wife of Victorian literary lion Alfred Gibson. The novel starts with the death of Gibson, who, like Dickens, was a 19th-century superstar. Arnold provocatively imagines what it must have been like to be married to a man who thought as much of himself as his fans did — and how a determined wife might have made the best of it. — Carol Memmott

East of the Sun
By Julia Gregson
Simon & Schuster trade paperback original, 512 pp., $16

It's 1928. British colonial grip on India is slipping. India, torn between the opposing forces of Gandhi, Muslum traditions and Western influences, struggles with its identity. In the midst of it: three women who have left their native England for different reasons. Naive Rose is betrothed to Jack, a stoic army officer. Brash Tor is desperate to find a husband so she won't have to return to her mother in England. Mysterious Viva, haunted by the past, seeks closure and a career as a writer. Julia Gregson expertly weaves their stories together in this vivid tale. — Korina Lopez

The NY Times Book Review's Top Ten (2005,2009)

The New York Times named its 10 best books of 2009, noting that "after so many years, and so many lists, you might think the task of choosing the 10 Best Books would get easier. If only. The sublime story collections alone created agonies of indecision. So did the superb literary biographies we read--and deeply admired. But in the end the decisions had to be made."
2009's top 10:

Fiction

Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy (short stories)
Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem
A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore (Knopf)
Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel by Jeannette Walls (Scribner)
A Short History of Women by Kate Walbert (Scribner)

Nonfiction

The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes
The Good Soldiers by David Finkel
Lit: A Memoir by Mary Karr
Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed
Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life by Carol Sklenicka

The New York Times Book Review yesterday listed its top 10 titles for 2005:

* Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (Knopf, $25.95, 1400043662). "This graceful and dreamily cerebral novel, translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel, tells two stories--that of a boy fleeing an Oedipal prophecy, and that of a witless old man who can talk to cats."
* On Beauty by Zadie Smith (Penguin Press, $25.95, 1594200637). Smith shows "a crisp intellect, a lovely wit and enormous sympathy for the men, women and children who populate her story. "
* Prep: A Novel by Curtis Sittenfeld (Random House, $13.95, 081297235X). "This calm and memorably incisive first novel, about a scholarship girl who heads east to attend an elite prep school, casts an unshakable spell and has plenty to say about class, sex and character."
* Saturday by Ian McEwan (Talese/Doubleday, $26, 0385511809). "As bracing and as carefully constructed as anything McEwan has written."
* Veronica: A Novel by Mary Gaitskill (Pantheon, $23, 0375421459). A "mesmerizingly dark novel . . . narrated by a former Paris model."
* The Assassin's Gate: America in Iraq by George Packer (FSG, $26, 0374299633). "A comprehensive look at the largest foreign policy gamble in a generation."
* de Kooning: An American Master by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan (Knopf, $35, 1400041759). "A sweeping biography, impressively researched and absorbingly written."
* The Lost Painting by Jonathan Harr (Random House, $24.95, 0375508015). A "gripping narrative, populated by a beguiling cast of scholars, historians, art restorers and aging nobles, records the search for Caravaggio's Taking of Christ, painted in 1602 and rediscovered in 1990."
* Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 by Tony Judt (Penguin Press, $39.95, 1594200653). "Massive, learned, beautifully detailed."
* The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (Knopf, $23.95, 140004314X). "A prose master's harrowing yet exhilarating memoir."

Bernstein Book Award 2009

Jane Mayer, a staff writer for the New Yorker, has won the New York Public Library's 2009 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism for The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals (Doubleday), according to the New York Times. The prize, which honors a journalist whose work has brought public attention to important issues, carries a $15,000 award.

Harrison, Jim. English major

Boston Globe 110208
In 'Major,' Harrison plots an impulsive odyssey

By John Dufresne | November 2, 2008

2
Grove, 255 pp., $24

"Wife. Farm. Dog. Gone." Cliff, the protagonist of Jim Harrison's "The English Major," finds himself at 60 detached from all that he has held dear, including Vivian, his wife of 38 years. Vivian is a real estate agent who likes butterscotch schnapps, snack food, and her old high-school sweetheart these days more than she likes her cheating husband. Cliff, the English major of the title, has been parked in his Michigan farm for 25 years, living simply and hermetically, his recent romantic indiscretion with a waitress notwithstanding. But now Vivian has sold the family farm. Cliff isn't sure where he's going, but he can't stay here.

When he finds a puzzle of the United States while sorting through an old trunk, Cliff decides he'll set off to see America. The puzzle connects Cliff to his childhood and to his beloved brother Teddy, who adored it - Teddy had Down syndrome and drowned when he was 11.

At first the journey proves exhilarating and curative: "Everything I saw was something I had never seen before." But Cliff is uneasy and misses the routine of agrarian life. Cliff's son Robert, a film location specialist, tells his father, "Dad, you are on a great adventure and have been liberated to a new life." But Cliff doesn't want to be free. "I want Vivian back," he declares early on. Well, he does and he doesn't. He will tell Robert, "I don't care if that bitch drops dead." Still, he longs for home, if not for marriage, and for the comfort of a woman.

He satisfies this craving with a phone call to a favorite ex-student, Marybelle, whom he remembers as "an off-brand peach," but will soon come to think of as a "ditz" and a "haphazard typhoon." Marybelle is a tad bipolar and is resolutely addicted to her cellphone. "It's a prime weapon against our essential loneliness," she tells Cliff. She's along for a ride to Bozeman to see a cousin. Or so she says. And so we're off.

The plot, however, does not so much build as drift. Cliff and the married Marybelle meander their way through the upper Midwest, making rowdy love in a series of motels. Cliff, we hope, is wondering, as we are, just what the purpose of this odyssey is. Will adultery be his only adventure? One morning in Montana, Marybelle asks Cliff if he's really searching for a creative solution to his life. He tells her he's decided to rename the states and the birds of America because "birds simply don't deserve the banal names we've given them." This enterprise might seem rather pointless and uninspired to us, but Cliff now has his requisite purpose and begins to consider the naming a sacred duty.

When Cliff learns that Marybelle has no cousin in Bozeman, no brother in Africa, that she suffers from "affection binges," which her long-suffering husband forgives, and that all of what she's told Cliff about herself is a fiction, he leaves her with her husband and drives on to the West Coast, where he'll visit Robert.

Problem is, we miss Marybelle, maddening as she could be. Cliff's an unusually dull traveling companion. His eyes are seldom on the spectacular panoramic vistas but are focused instead on the sinuosities of women's backsides. One derriere could start a war, another win the Olympics "if they had sense enough to have a best butt competition." And so on.

It's not that Cliff is shallow, but he has allowed himself to slump into a sentimental and parochial life. He once taught school and then let his profound distaste for teaching spoil his love for literature. Once he thought that books could save his life. Now he lets a child's jigsaw puzzle guide his way. When the puzzle fails him, he defers to his enigmatic and licentious friend AD (short for "alcoholic doctor"), who serves as both provocateur and sage, and who proffers this advice: "You're trying to start a new life at sixty, which is also impossible. You can only try variations on your common theme." And maybe AD is right.

Clearly plot is not the engine that drives Harrison's novel; character is, and Cliff is a poignant, if not a spellbinding, one. He sees himself as just another American fool on the loose. But Cliff's a reluctant nomad. This most pragmatic man acted, for once, impulsively. He tells us he has returned to his purest instincts on the trip. "Obviously my road trip had begun to tug my mind back from the so-called real world to the world of books I had so valued in my late teens and early twenties." Perhaps it has. Perhaps he was saved by the one impulsive act, the leaving, which freed him from the life of routine and preoccupation, and that liberation has allowed his suddenly unfixed mind to drift, to daydream, to imagine, and to observe the world outside himself. Cliff tells us about a startling conversation he overheard. One woman tells another that "her baby had only learned to crawl backwards which meant that objects of his desire were always receding." And now we understand what Cliff is up to - he's driving away from home with his gaze in the rearview mirror.

John Dufresne's most recent book is the novel "Requiem, Mass."