Los Angeles Times Book Prize
Since 1980, the Los Angeles Times has awarded a set of annual book prizes. The Prizes currently have nine 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.[1] It is named in honor of Robert Kirsch, the Los Angeles Times book critic from 1952 until his death in 1980 whose idea it was to establish the book prizes.
The Book Prize program was founded by Art Seidenbaum, a Los Angeles Times book editor from 1978 to 1985. An award named for him was added a year after his death in 1990. Works are eligible during the year of their first US publication in English, and may be written originally in languages other than English. The author of each winning book and the Kirsch Award recipient receives a citation and $1,000. The prizes are presented the day before the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.
Winners
Biography
- 2019: Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century by George Packer (Knopf)[2]
- 2018: Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight, (Simon & Schuster)
- 2017: Henry David Thoreau: A Life, by Laura Walls, University of Chicago Press
- 2016: Hitler: Ascent, 1889–1939 by Volker Ullrich, translated by Jefferson Chase (Knopf)
- 2015: Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi by Hayden Herrera (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- 2014: Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts (Viking)
- 2013: Bolivar: American Liberator by Marie Arana (Simon & Schuster)
- 2012: The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert A. Caro (Knopf)
- 2011: Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned by John A. Farrell (Doubleday)
- 2010: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand (Random House)
- 2009: Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits by Linda Gordon (W.W. Norton & Co.)
- 2008: Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching by Paula J. Giddings (Amistad/HarperCollins)
- 2007: Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore (Knopf)
- 2006: Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler (Alfred A. Knopf)
- 2005: Matisse the Master: A Life of Henri Matisse, the Conquest of Colour, 1909–1954 by Hilary Spurling, (Knopf)
- 2004: de Kooning: An American Master by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan (Knopf)
- 2003: American Empire: Roosevelt's Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization by Neil Smith (University of California Press)
- 2002: Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. 3 by Robert A. Caro (Knopf)
- 2001: Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris (Random House)
- 2000: Jefferson Davis, American by William J. Cooper, Jr. (Knopf)
- 1999: Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman (Knopf)
- 1998: Lindbergh by A. Scott Berg (Putnam's)
- 1997: Whittaker Chambers: A Biography by Sam Tanenhaus (Random House)
- 1996: Angela's Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt (Scribner)
- 1995: Under My Skin: Volume One of My Autobiography, to 1949 by Doris Lessing (HarperCollins)
- 1994: Shot in the Heart by Mikal Gilmore (Doubleday)
- 1993: Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer by John Mack Faragher (Henry Holt)
- 1992: Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume One, 1884–1933 by Blanche Wiesen Cook (Viking Books)
- 1991: Righteous Pilgrim: The Life and Times of Harold L. Ickes, 1874–1952 by T. H. Watkins (Henry Holt)
- 1990: A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt by Geoffrey C. Ward (Harper & Row)
- 1989: This Boy's Life: A Memoir by Tobias Wolff (Atlantic Monthly Press)
- 1988: Nora: The Real Life of Molly Bloom by Brenda Maddox (Houghton Mifflin)
- 1987: Hemingway by Kenneth S. Lynn (Simon & Schuster)
- 1986: Alexander Pope: A Life by Maynard Mack (W.W. Norton)
- 1985: Solzhenitsyn by Michael Scammell (W.W. Norton)
- 1984: The Nightmare of Reason by Ernst Pawel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- 1983: The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House by Seymour Hersh (Summit Books)
- 1982: Waldo Emerson: A Biography by Gay Wilson Allen (Viking)
- 1981: Mornings on Horseback by David McCullough (Simon & Schuster)
Current interest
- 2019: Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration by Emily Bazelon (Random House)[2]
- 2018: The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches From the Border by Francisco Cantu, Riverhead Books
- 2017: Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America by Nancy MacLean, Viking Press
- 2016: Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Svetlana Alexievich translated by Bela Shayevich (Random House)
- 2015: Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security by Sarah Chayes (W.W. Norton and Company)
- 2014: The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League by Jeff Hobbs (Scribner)
- 2013: Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink (Crown)
- 2012: Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo (Random House)
- 2011: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- 2010: The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis (W. W. Norton & Company)
- 2009: Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (McSweeney's Books)
- 2008: Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency by Barton Gellman (The Penguin Press)
- 2007: Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point by Elizabeth D. Samet (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- 2006: Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance by Ian Buruma (Penguin Press)
- 2005: Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War, by Anthony Shadid (Henry Holt)
- 2004: Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America and the New Face of American War by Evan Wright (G.P. Putnam's Sons)
- 2003: The New Chinese Empire - And What It Means for the United States by Ross Terrill (Basic Books)
- 2002: Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex by Judith Levine (University of Minnesota Press)
- 2001: Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich (Metropolitan Books, an imprint of Henry Holt and Company)
- 2000: Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War by Frances FitzGerald (Simon & Schuster)
- 1999: Sidewalk (with Photographs by Ovie Carter) by Mitchell Duneier (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- 1998: We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- 1997: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- 1996: Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War by Peter Maass (Alfred A. Knopf)
- 1995: Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy Who Discovered He Was Black by Gregory Howard Williams (Dutton)
- 1994: Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger (Simon & Schuster)
- 1993: Mexican Americans: The Ambivalent Minority by Peter Skerry (The Free Press)
- 1992: The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama (The Free Press)
- 1991: Why Americans Hate Politics: The Death of the Democratic Process by E. J. Dionne, Jr. (Simon & Schuster)
- 1990: Disappearing through the Skylight: Culture and Technology in the Twentieth Century by O. B. Hardison, Jr. (Viking)
- 1989: Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963 by Taylor Branch (Simon & Schuster)
- 1988: Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country by William Greider (Simon & Schuster)
- 1987: The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins (W.W. Norton)
- 1986: Move Your Shadow: South Africa, Black and White by Joseph Lelyveld (Times Books)
- 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 (University of California Press)
- 1984: Cities and the Wealth of Nations by Jane Jacobs (Random House)
- 1983: Lost in the Cosmos by Walker Percy (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- 1982: The Fate of the Earth by Jonathan Schell (Alfred A. Knopf)
- 1981: Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number by Jacobo Timerman (Alfred A. Knopf)
- 1980: Without Fear or Favor by Harrison Salisbury (New York Times Books) [Winner of the General Award—no Current Interest Award this year]
Fiction
- 2019: The Topeka School by Ben Lerner (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)[2]
- 2018: The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai, (Viking)
- 2017: Exit West by Mohsin Hamid, (Riverhead Books)
- 2016: Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett (Little, Brown and Company)
- 2015: The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli (Coffee House Press)
- 2014: The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt (Simon & Schuster)
- 2013: A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (Viking)
- 2012: Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain (HarperCollins Publishers / Ecco)
- 2011: Luminarium by Alex Shakar (SoHo Press)
- 2010: A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (Knopf)
- 2009: A Happy Marriage, by Rafael Yglesias (Scribner)
- 2008: Home by Marilynne Robinson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- 2007: Be Near Me by Andrew O'Hagan (Harcourt)
- 2006: A Woman in Jerusalem [translated from the Hebrew by Hillel Halkin] by A. B. Yehoshua (Harcourt)
- 2005: Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel García Márquez, translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman (Alfred A. Knopf)
- 2004: The Master by Colm Tóibín (Scribner)
- 2003: Train: A Novel by Pete Dexter (Doubleday)
- 2002: Atonement: A Novel by Ian McEwan (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday)
- 2001: Why Did I Ever by Mary Robison (Counterpoint)
- 2000: Assorted Fire Events: Stories by David Means (Context Books)
- 1999: Freedom Song: Three Novels by Amit Chaudhuri (Alfred A. Knopf)
- 1998: The Rings of Saturn by W. G. Sebald [Translated from the German by Michael Hulse] (New Directions)
- 1997: In the Rogue Blood by James Carlos Blake (Avon Books)
- 1996: A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry (Alfred A. Knopf)
- 1995: The Blue Afternoon by William Boyd (Alfred A. Knopf)
- 1994: Remembering Babylon by David Malouf (Pantheon Books)
- 1993: Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver (HarperCollins)
- 1992: Maus II, A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman (Pantheon Books)
- 1991: White People by Allan Gurganus (Alfred A. Knopf)
- 1990: Lantern Slides by Edna O'Brien (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- 1989: The Heart of the Country by Fay Weldon (Viking)
- 1988: Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Marquez (Alfred A. Knopf)
- 1987: Fools Crow by James Welch (Viking)
- 1986: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (Houghton Mifflin)
- 1985: Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich (Holt, Rinehart and Winston)
- 1984: The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (Harper & Row)
- 1983: Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally (Simon & Schuster)
- 1982: A Flag for Sunrise by Robert Stone (Alfred A. Knopf)
- 1981: The White Hotel by D.M. Thomas(Viking)
- 1980: The Second Coming by Walker Percy (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
History
- 2019: They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South, by Stephanie Jones-Rogers (Yale University Press)
- 2018: Travelers in the Third Reich: The Rise of Fascism: 1919–1945 by Julia Boyd (Pegasus Books)
- 2017: The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan (W. W. Norton & Company)
- 2016: An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846–1873 by Benjamin Madley (Yale University Press)
- 2015: Killing a King: The Assassination of a Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel by Dan Ephron (W.W. Norton and Company)
- 2014: The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916–1931 by Adam Tooze (Viking)
- 2013: The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark (HarperCollins)
- 2012: America's Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise That Preserved the Union by Fergus M. Bordewich (Simon & Schuster)
- 2011: Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America by Richard White (W.W. Norton & Company)
- 2010: The Killing of Crazy Horse by Thomas Powers (Knopf)
- 2009: Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance 1950–1963 by Kevin Starr (Oxford University Press)
- 2008: Hitler's Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe by Mark Mazower (The Penguin Press)
- 2007: Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner (Doubleday)
- 2006: The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright (Alfred A. Knopf)
- 2005: Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves by Adam Hochschild (Houghton Mifflin)
- 2004: Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism by Geoffrey R. Stone (W.W. Norton & Company)
- 2003: An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America by Henry Wiencek (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- 2002: Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Michael B. Oren (Oxford University Press)
- 2001: Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus by Rick Perlstein (Hill and Wang Division, Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- 2000: The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach by Alice Kaplan (University of Chicago Press)
- 1999: Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II by John W. Dower (W.W. Norton)
- 1998: The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity by Roy Porter (W.W. Norton)
- 1997: A People's Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution by Orlando Figes (Viking)
- 1996: Black Sea by Neal Ascherson (Hill & Wang)
- 1995: Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America by Jackson Lears (Basic Books)
- 1994: Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890–1940 by George Chauncey (Basic Books)
- 1993: New Worlds, Ancient Texts: The Power of Tradition and the Shock of Discovery by Anthony Grafton (Harvard University Press)
- 1992: Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families under Fascism by Alexander Stille (Summit)
- 1991: The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America by Nicholas Lemann (Alfred A. Knopf)
- 1990: The Quest for El Cid by Richard Fletcher (Alfred A. Knopf)
- 1989: An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood by Neal Gabler (Crown Books)
- 1988: Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 by Eric Foner (Harper & Row)
- 1987: The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide by Robert Jay Lifton[3]
- 1986: The First Socialist Society: A History of the Soviet Union from Within by Geoffrey Hosking (Harvard University Press)
- 1985: Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Bighorn by Evan S. Connell (North Point Press)
- 1984: The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History by Robert Darnton (Basic Books)
- 1983: The Wheels of Commerce by Fernand Braudel (Harper & Row)
- 1982: The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution, 1895–1980 by Jonathan D. Spence (Viking)
- 1981: Land of Savagery/Land of Promise by Ray Allen Billington (W.W. Norton)
- 1980: Walter Lippmann and the American Century by Ronald Steel (Atlantic/ Little Brown)
Mystery/thriller
- 2019: Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha (Ecco)[2]
- 2018: My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite, (Viking)
- 2017: A Book of American Martyrs by Joyce Carol Oates (Ecco)
- 2016: Dodgers by Bill Beverly (Crown)
- 2015: The Cartel by Don Winslow (Alfred A. Knopf)
- 2014: Dry Bones in the Valley by Tom Bouman (W.W. Norton & Company)
- 2013: The Cuckoo's Calling by J. K. Rowling writing as Robert Galbraith (Mulholland Books/Little, Brown & Company)
- 2012: Broken Harbor by Tana French (Viking)
- 2011: 11/22/63 by Stephen King (Scribner)
- 2010: Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin (William Morrow)
- 2009: The Ghosts of Belfast, by Stuart Neville (SOHO Press)
- 2008: Envy the Night by Michael Koryta (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Minotaur)
- 2007: The Indian Bride by Karin Fossum, translated by Charlotte Barslund (Harcourt)
- 2006: Echo Park by Michael Connelly
- 2005: Legends by Robert Littell (Overlook Press)
- 2004: Tijuana Straits by Kem Nunn (Scribner)
- 2003: Soul Circus by George P. Pelecanos (Little, Brown)
- 2002: Hell to Pay by George P. Pelecanos (Little, Brown and Company)
- 2001: Silent Joe by T. Jefferson Parker (Hyperion)
- 2000: A Place of Execution by Val McDermid (St. Martin's Press/Minotaur)
Science and technology
- 2019: Figuring by Maria Popova (Pantheon)[2]
- 2018: Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America by Beth Macy (Little, Brown and Company)
- 2017: Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert Sapolsky (Penguin Books)
- 2016: Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets by Luke Dittrich (Random House)
- 2015: The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World by Andrea Wulf (Alfred A. Knopf)
- 2014: The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert (Henry Holt & Co)
- 2013: Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth? by Alan Weisman (Little, Brown & Company)
- 2012: Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History by Florence Williams (W.W. Norton & Company)
- 2011: Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius by Sylvia Nasar (Simon & Schuster)
- 2010: The Price of Altruism: George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness by Oren Harman (W. W. Norton & Company)
- 2009: The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom by Graham Farmelo (Basic Books/Perseus Book Group)
- 2008: The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics by Leonard Susskind (Little, Brown and Co.)
- 2007: I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter (Basic Books)
- 2006: In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind by Eric R. Kandel (W.W. Norton)
- 2005: Before the Fallout: From Marie Curie to Hiroshima by Diana Preston (Walker & Company)
- 2004: The Whale and the Supercomputer: On the Northern Front of Climate Change by Charles Wohlforth (North Point Press / Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- 2003: Protecting America’s Health: The FDA, Business, and One Hundred Years of Regulation by Philip J. Hilts (Alfred A. Knopf)
- 2002: Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA by Brenda Maddox (HarperCollins Publishers)
- 2001: The Invention of Clouds: How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies by Richard Hamblyn (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- 2000: The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine by James Le Fanu, M.D. (Carroll & Graf)
- 1999: Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love by Dava Sobel (Walker and Company)
- 1998: Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce by Douglas Starr (Alfred A. Knopf)
- 1997: How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker (W.W. Norton)
- 1996: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan (Random House)
- 1995: Naturalist by Edward O. Wilson (Island Press)
- 1994: The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time by Jonathan Weiner (Alfred A. Knopf)
- 1993: Fuzzy Logic: The Discovery of a Revolutionary Computer Technology -- and How It Is Changing Our World by Daniel McNeill and Paul Freiberger (Simon & Schuster)
- 1992: The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal by Jared Diamond (HarperCollins)
- 1991: The Truth About Chernobyl by Grigori Medvedev (Basic Books)
- 1990: Patenting the Sun: Polio and the Salk Vaccine by Jane S. Smith (William Morrow)
- 1989: Peacemaking among Primates by Frans de Waal (Harvard University Press)
Poetry
- 2019: Deaf Republic: Poems by Ilya Kaminsky (Graywolf Press)[2]
- 2018: Wild is the Wind: Poems by Carl Phillips (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- 2017: Incendiary Art: Poems by Patricia Smith (TriQuarterly/Northwestern University Press)[4]
- 2016: Gap Gardening: Selected Poems by Rosmarie Waldrop (New Directions)
- 2015: From the New World: Poems 1976–2014 by Jorie Graham (Ecco/HarperCollins)
- 2014: Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine (Graywolf Press)
- 2013: Collected Poems by Ron Padgett (Coffee House Press)
- 2012: Poems 1962–2012 by Louise Glück (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- 2011: Double Shadow: Poems by Carl Phillips (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- 2010: Where I Live: New & Selected Poems 1990–2010 by Maxine Kumin (W. W. Norton & Company)
- 2009: Practical Water by Brenda Hillman (Wesleyan University Press)
- 2008: Watching the Spring Festival: Poems by Frank Bidart (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- 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 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- 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 (Alfred A. Knopf)
- 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 (W.W. Norton)
- 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/ Houghton Mifflin)
- 1988: New and Collected Poems by Richard Wilbur (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich)
- 1987: Partial Accounts: New and Selected Poems by William Meredith (Alfred A. Knopf)
- 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 literature
- 2019: When the Ground is Hard by Malla Nunn (G.P. Putnam)[5]
- 2018: The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo (HarperTeen)
- 2017: Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
- 2016: The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge (Harry N. Abrams)
- 2015: My Seneca Village by Marilyn Nelson (Namelos)
- 2014: The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia by Candace Fleming (Schwartz & Wade/Random House Children's)
- 2013: Boxers and Saints by Gene Luen Yang (First Second/Macmillan)
- 2012: Ask the Passengers by A. S. King (Little, Brown Books For Young Readers)
- 2011: The Big Crunch by Pete Hautman (Scholastic Press)
- 2010: A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner (Greenwillow/HarperCollins)
- 2009: Marching for Freedom: Walk Together Children and Don’t You Grow Weary by Elizabeth Partridge (Viking Children's Books/Penguin Group)
- 2008: Nation by Terry Pratchett (HarperCollins)
- 2007: A Darkling Plain by Philip Reeve (Scholastic)
- 2006: Tyrell by Coe Booth (Push / Scholastic)
- 2005: You & You & You by Per Nilsson, translated from the Swedish by Tara Chace (Front Street/Boyds Mills Press)
- 2004: Doing It by Melvin Burgess (Henry Holt Books for Young Readers)
- 2003: A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly (Harcourt Children's Books)
- 2002: Feed by M. T. Anderson (Candlewick Press)
- 2001: The Land by Mildred D. Taylor (Phyllis Fogelman Books, Penguin Putnam)
- 2000: Miracle's Boys by Jacqueline Woodson (G.P. Putnam's Sons, Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers)
- 1999: Frenchtown Summer by Robert Cormier (Delacorte Press)
- 1998: Rules of the Road by Joan Bauer (G.P. Putnam's Sons)
The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction
- 2019: The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell (Hogarth)
- 2018: Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires (Atria/37 Ink)
- 2017: Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang (Random House)
- 2016: The Nix by Nathan Hill (Knopf)
- 2015: The Fisherman by Chigozie Obioma (Little, Brown and Company)
- 2014: Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli (translated by Christina MacSweeney) (Coffee House Press)
- 2013: We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo (Reagan Arthur Books)
- 2012: Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead (Knopf)
- 2011: Shards by Ismet Prcic (Black Cat/Grove/Atlantic)
- 2010: The House of Tomorrow by Peter Bognanni (Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam)
- 2009: American Rust, by Philipp Meyer (Spiegel & Grau)
- 2008: Finding Nouf by Zoë Ferraris (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
- 2007: The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu (Riverhead)
- 2006: White Ghost Girls by Alice Greenway (Black Cat / Grove/Atlantic)
- 2005: Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala (HarperCollins)
- 2004: Harbor by Lorraine Adams (Alfred A. Knopf)
- 2003: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (Doubleday)
- 2002: Prague by Arthur Phillips (Random House)
- 2001: The Dark Room by Rachel Seiffert (Pantheon Books)
- 2000: The Romantics by Pankaj Mishra (Random House)
- 1999: Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout (Random House)
- 1998: Kalimantaan by C. S. Godshalk (Henry Holt)
- 1997: Don't Erase Me: Stories by Carolyn Ferrell (Houghton Mifflin)
- 1996: The Smell of Apples by Mark Behr (St. Martin's)
- 1995: American Studies by Mark Merlis (Houghton Mifflin)
- 1994: The Year of the Frog by Martin M. Šimecka (Louisiana State University Press)
- 1993: Love <Enter> by Paul Kafka (Houghton Mifflin)
- 1992: High Cotton by Darryl Pinckney (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- 1991: Pangs of Love by David Wong Louie (Alfred A. Knopf)
Graphic Novel
- 2019: The Hard Tomorrow by Eleanor Davis (Drawn and Quarterly)
- 2018: On A Sunbeam by Tillie Walden (First Second)
- 2017: Present by Leslie Stein, (Drawn & Quarterly)
- 2016: Beverly by Nick Drnaso (Drawn & Quarterly)
- 2015: Arab of the Future: A Childhood in the Middle East, 1978–1984: A Graphic Memoir by Riad Sattouf (Metropolitan Books)
- 2014: The Love Bunglers by Jaime Hernandez (Fantagraphics Books)
- 2013: Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life by Ulli Lust (Fantagraphics)
- 2012: Everything Together: Collected Stories by Sammy Harkham (PictureBox)
- 2011: Finder: Voice by Carla Speed McNeil (Dark Horse)
- 2010: Duncan the Wonder Dog: Show One by Adam Hines (Adhouse Books)
- 2009: Asterios Polyp, David Mazzucchelli (Pantheon)
The Robert Kirsch Award
- 2019: Walter Mosley[2]
- 2018: Terry Tempest Williams
- 2017: John Rechy
- 2016: Thomas McGuane
- 2015: Juan Felipe Herrera
- 2014: TC Boyle
- 2013: Susan Straight
- 2012: Kevin Starr
- 2011: Rudolfo Anaya
- 2010: Beverly Cleary
- 2009: Evan S. Connell
- 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
Innovator's Award
- 2019: WriteGirl[2]
- 2018: Library of America
- 2017: Glory Edim
- 2016: Rueben Martinez
- 2015: James Patterson
- 2014: LeVar Burton
- 2013: John Green
- 2012: Margaret Atwood
- 2011: Figment, self-publishing platform
- 2010: Powell's Books, bookstore
- 2009: Dave Eggers
The Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose
- 2019: Emily Bernard, Black is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother's Time, My Mother's Time, and Mine[2]
- 2018: Kiese Laymon, Heavy: An American Memoir
- 2017: Benjamin Taylor, The Hue and Cry at Our House: A Year Remembered
- 2016: Wesley Lowery[6]
References
- "BookPrizes About - Festival of Books". The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Archived from the original on 2020-10-13. Retrieved 2020-11-05.
- "LA Times 2019 Book Prizes". Festival of Books. Retrieved 2020-05-07.
- "The Los Angeles Times Book Prize, 1987". October 18, 1987 – via LA Times.
- Zahniser, David. "Los Angeles Times book prizes awarded to literary veterans, emerging authors". LATimes.com. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved April 23, 2018.
- "'When the Ground is Hard' wins LA Times Book Prize for YA". Books+Publishing. 2020-04-22. Retrieved 2020-05-07.
- "The Isherwood-Bachardy Prizes". isherwoodfoundation.org.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Los Angeles Times Book Prize winners. |
- Honorees by Year and Award Los Angeles Times Book Prizes.