PVLD Adult Services Blog

The 30^th annual Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were presented yesterday.  In opening remarks, Times Book Editor David L. Ulin spoke about the importance of reading.  “In a culture of constant overflow, of toil and trouble and outright distraction, we need what books have to offer: their slowing stillness, their vertical plunge.”

Current Interest winner Dave Eggers also won The Times’ first Innovators Award, for his work in the publishing industry and on behalf of children’s literacy.  Evan S. Connell won the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement, which recognizes an author with a connection to the American West.  A new category recognizing graphic novels was also introduced this year.

• Fiction: Rafael Yglesias, A Happy Marriage

• Current Interest: Dave Eggers, Zeitoun

• History:  Kevin Starr, Golden Dreams: California in the Age of Abundance 1950-1963

• Graphic Novel: David Mazzucchelli, Asterios Polyp

• Biography: Linda Gordon, Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits

• Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction: Philipp Meyer, American Rust

• Mystery/Thriller: Stuart Neville, The Ghosts of Belfast

• Poetry: Brenda Hillman, Practical Water

• Science and Technology: Graham Farmelo, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom

• Young Adult Fiction: Elizabeth Partridge, Marching for Freedom: Walk Together, Children, and Don’t You Grow Weary