The Chandler Auditorium in the Los Angeles Times building in downtown Los Angeles was the site of the Los Angeles Times 29th annual book prizes. David Ulin introduced the presenters who praised the five finalists in nine catagories before announcing the winners.
The winners:
• Fiction: Marilynne Robinson for Home (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Current Interest: Barton Gellman for Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency (Penguin Press)
• Biography: Paula J. Giddings for Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching (HarperCollins/Amistad)
• History: Mark Mazower for Hitler's Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe (Penguin Press)
• Mystery/Thriller: Michael Koryta for Envy the Night (St. Martin's Minotaur/Thomas Dunne)
• Poetry: Frank Bidart for Watching the Spring Festival: Poems (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Science & Technology: Leonard Susskind for The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics (Little, Brown)
• Young Adult Literature: Terry Pratchett for Nation (HarperCollins)
• Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction: Zoe Ferraris for Finding Nouf (Houghton Mifflin)
• Robert Kirsch Award (given annually to a living author "with a substantial connection to the American West”): Robert Alter.
The winners were eloquent with Robinson and Bidart thanking FSG's Jonathan Galassi. Suskind wished an ill Stephen Hawkin the strength to survive.
Each prize carries a $1,000 award.
