Los Angeles Times Book Prize

Since 1980, the Los Angeles Times has awarded a set of annual book prizes. The Los Angeles Times Book Prize currently has 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 Seidenbaum 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 $500. The prizes are presented the day before the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.

Winners

Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction

The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction winners
Year	Author	Title	Publisher	Ref.
1991	David Wong Louie	Pangs of Love	Alfred A. Knopf
1992	Darryl Pinckney	High Cotton	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
1993	Paul Kafka	Love	Houghton Mifflin
1994	Martin M. Šimecka	The Year of the Frog	Louisiana State University Press
1995	Mark Merlis	American Studies	Houghton Mifflin
1996	Mark Behr	The Smell of Apples	St. Martin's Press
1997	Carolyn Ferrell	Don't Erase Me: Stories	Houghton Mifflin
1998	C. S. Godshalk	Kalimantaan	Henry Holt
1999	Elizabeth Strout	Amy and Isabelle	Random House
2000	Pankaj Mishra	The Romantics	Random House
2001	Rachel Seiffert	The Dark Room	Pantheon Books
2002	Arthur Phillips	Prague	Random House
2003	Mark Haddon	The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time	Doubleday
2004	Lorraine Adams	Harbor	Alfred A. Knopf
2005	Uzodinma Iweala	Beasts of No Nation	HarperCollins	^[2]
2006	Alice Greenway	White Ghost Girls	Black Cat / Grove/Atlantic	^[3]
2007	Dinaw Mengestu	The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears	Riverhead
2008	Zoë Ferraris	Finding Nouf	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt	^[4]
2009	Philipp Meyer	American Rust	Spiegel & Grau	^[5]
2010	Peter Bognanni	The House of Tomorrow	Amy Einhorn Books/G.P. Putnam's Sons	^[6]
2011	Ismet Prcic	Shards	Black Cat / Grove/Atlantic	^[7]
2012	Maggie Shipstead	Seating Arrangements	Alfred A. Knopf	^[8]
2013	NoViolet Bulawayo	We Need New Names	Reagan Arthur Books	^[9]
2014	Valeria Luiselli with Christina MacSweeney (trans.)	Faces in the Crowd	Coffee House Press	^[10]
2015	Chigozie Obioma	The Fisherman	Little, Brown and Company	^[11]
2016	Nathan Hill	The Nix	Alfred A. Knopf	^[12]
2017	Jenny Zhang	Sour Heart	Random House	^[13]
2018	Nafissa Thompson-Spires	Heads of the Colored People	Atria/37 Ink	^[14]
2019	Namwali Serpell	The Old Drift	Hogarth Press	^[15]
2020	Deesha Philyaw	The Secret Lives of Church Ladies	West Virginia University Press	^[16]
2021	Jackie Polzin	Brood	Doubleday	^[17]^[18]
2022	Aamina Ahmad	The Return of Faraz Ali	Hodder & Stoughton	^[19]^[20]
2023	Shannon Sanders	Company: Stories		^[21]

Biography

*Los Angeles Times* Book Prize for Biography winners
Year	Author	Title	Publisher	Ref.
1981	David McCullough	Mornings on Horseback	Simon & Schuster
1982	Gay Wilson Allen	Waldo Emerson: A Biography	Viking
1983	Seymour Hersh	The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House	Summit Books
1984	Ernst Pawel	The Nightmare of Reason	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
1985	Michael Scammell	Solzhenitsyn	W.W. Norton & Company
1986	Maynard Mack	Alexander Pope: A Life	W.W. Norton & Company
1987	Kenneth S. Lynn	Hemingway	Simon & Schuster
1988	Brenda Maddox	Nora: The Real Life of Molly Bloom	Houghton Mifflin
1989	Tobias Wolff	This Boy's Life: A Memoir	Atlantic Monthly Press
1990	Geoffrey C. Ward	A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt	Harper & Row
1991	T. H. Watkins	Righteous Pilgrim: The Life and Times of Harold L. Ickes, 1874–1952	Henry Holt
1992	Blanche Wiesen Cook	Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume One, 1884–1933	Viking
1993	John Mack Faragher	Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer	Henry Holt
1994	Mikal Gilmore	Shot in the Heart	Doubleday
1995	Doris Lessing	Under My Skin: Volume One of My Autobiography, to 1949	HarperCollins
1996	Frank McCourt	Angela's Ashes: A Memoir	Scribner
1997	Sam Tanenhaus	Whittaker Chambers: A Biography	Random House
1998	A. Scott Berg	Lindbergh	G.P. Putnam's Sons
1999	Judith Thurman	Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette	Alfred A. Knopf
2000	William J. Cooper, Jr.	Jefferson Davis, American	Alfred A. Knopf
2001	Edmund Morris	Theodore Rex	Random House	^[22]
2002	Robert A. Caro	Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. 3	Alfred A. Knopf
2003	Neil Smith	American Empire: Roosevelt's Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization	University of California Press
2004	Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan	de Kooning: An American Master	Alfred A. Knopf
2005	Hilary Spurling	Matisse the Master: A Life of Henri Matisse, the Conquest of Colour, 1909–1954	Alfred A. Knopf	^[2]
2006	Neal Gabler	Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination	Alfred A. Knopf	^[3]
2007	Simon Sebag Montefiore	Young Stalin	Alfred A. Knopf
2008	Paula J. Giddings	Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching	Amistad/HarperCollins	^[4]
2009	Linda Gordon	Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits	W.W. Norton & Company	^[5]
2010	Laura Hillenbrand	Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption	Random House	^[6]
2011	John A. Farrell	Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned	Doubleday	^[7]
2012	Robert A. Caro	The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson	Alfred A. Knopf	^[8]
2013	Marie Arana	Bolivar: American Liberator	Simon & Schuster	^[9]
2014	Andrew Roberts	Napoleon: A Life	Viking	^[10]
2015	Hayden Herrera	Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
2016	Volker Ullrich with Jefferson Chase (trans.)	Hitler: Ascent, 1889–1939	Alfred A. Knopf	^[12]
2017	Laura Walls	Henry David Thoreau: A Life	University of Chicago Press	^[13]
2018	David W. Blight	Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom	Simon & Schuster	^[14]^[23]
2019	George Packer	Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century	Alfred A. Knopf	^[15]^[24]^[25]
2020	William Souder	Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck	W.W. Norton & Company	^[16]^[26]
2021	Paul Auster	Burning Boy: The Life and Work of Stephen Crane	Henry Holt & Company	^[17]^[18]
2022	Beverly Gage	G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century	Viking Press	^[27]^[20]
2023	Gregg Hecimovich	The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts: The True Story of The Bondwoman’s Narrative	Ecco/HarperCollins	^[21]^[28]^[29]

Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose

The Los Angeles Times – Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose has been awarded in partnership with the Christopher Isherwood Foundation since April 2017 (for 2016).^[30]

The Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose winners
Year	Author	Title	Publisher	Ref.
2016	Wesley Lowery	"They Can't Kill Us All": Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America's Racial Justice Movement	Little, Brown and Company	^[12]^[30]
2017	Benjamin Taylor	The Hue and Cry at Our House: A Year Remembered	Penguin Books	^[13]^[30]
2018	Kiese Laymon	Heavy: An American Memoir	Scribner Book Company	^[14]^[30]
2019	Emily Bernard	Black is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother's Time, My Mother's Time, and Mine	Alfred A. Knopf	^[15]^[25]^[30]
2020	Andrew O'Hagan	Mayflies		^[26]^[30]
2021	Deborah Levy	Real Estate: A Living Autobiography	Bloomsbury	^[17]^[18]
2022	Javier Zamora	Solito: A Memoir.	Hogarth Press	^[20]^[27]
2023	Claire Dederer	Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma	Alfred A. Knopf	^[21]

Current interest

*Los Angeles Times* Book Prize for Current Interest winners
Year	Author	Title	Publisher	Ref.
1980	Harrison Salisbury	Without Fear or Favor	New York Times Books
1981	Jacobo Timerman	Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number	Alfred A. Knopf
1982	Jonathan Schell	The Fate of the Earth	Alfred A. Knopf
1983	Walker Percy	Lost in the Cosmos	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
1984	Jane Jacobs	Cities and the Wealth of Nations	Random House
1985	Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler and Steven M. Tipton	Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life	University of California Press
1986	Joseph Lelyveld	Move Your Shadow: South Africa, Black and White	Times Books
1987	Richard Dawkins	The Blind Watchmaker	W.W. Norton & Company
1988	William Greider	Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country	Simon & Schuster
1989	Taylor Branch	Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963	Simon & Schuster
1990	O. B. Hardison, Jr.	Disappearing through the Skylight: Culture and Technology in the Twentieth Century	Viking
1991	E. J. Dionne, Jr.	Why Americans Hate Politics: The Death of the Democratic Process	Simon & Schuster
1992	Francis Fukuyama	The End of History and the Last Man	The Free Press
1993	Peter Skerry	Mexican Americans: The Ambivalent Minority	The Free Press
1994	Henry Kissinger	Diplomacy	Simon & Schuster
1995	Gregory Howard Williams	Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy Who Discovered He Was Black	Dutton
1996	Peter Maass	Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War	Alfred A. Knopf
1997	Anne Fadiman	The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
1998	Philip Gourevitch	We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
1999	Mitchell Duneier with Ovie Carter (photographer)	Sidewalk	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
2000	Frances FitzGerald	Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War	Simon & Schuster
2001	Barbara Ehrenreich	Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America	Metropolitan Books / Henry Holt and Company	^[22]
2002	Judith Levine	Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex	University of Minnesota Press
2003	Ross Terrill	The New Chinese Empire - And What It Means for the United States	Basic Books	^[31]
2004	Evan Wright	Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America and the New Face of American War	G.P. Putnam's Sons
2005	Anthony Shadid	Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War	Henry Holt	^[2]
2006	Ian Buruma	Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance	Penguin Press	^[3]
2007	Elizabeth D. Samet	Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
2008	Barton Gellman	Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency	Penguin Press	^[4]
2009	Dave Eggers	Zeitoun	McSweeney's Books	^[5]
2010	Michael Lewis	The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine	W. W. Norton & Company	^[6]
2011	Daniel Kahneman	Thinking, Fast and Slow	Farrar, Straus and Giroux	^[7]
2012	Katherine Boo	Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity	Random House	^[8]
2013	Sheri Fink	Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital	Crown	^[9]
2014	Jeff Hobbs	The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League	Scribner	^[10]
2015	Sarah Chayes	Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security	W.W. Norton and Company
2016	Svetlana Alexievich with Bela Shayevich (trans.)	Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets	Random House	^[12]
2017	Nancy MacLean	Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America	Viking Press	^[13]
2018	Francisco Cantu	The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches From the Border	Riverhead Books	^[14]
2019	Emily Bazelon	Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration	Random House	^[15]^[25]
2020	Isabel Wilkerson	Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents	Random House	^[26]
2021	Adam Schiff	Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could	Random House	^[17]^[18]
2022	Dahlia Lithwick	Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America	Penguin Press	^[20]^[27]
2023	Roxanna Asgarian	We Were Once A Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America	Farrar, Straus and Giroux	^[28]^[29]

Fiction

*Los Angeles Times* Book Prize for Fiction winners
Year	Author	Title	Publisher	Ref.
1980	Walker Percy	The Second Coming	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
1981	D.M. Thomas	The White Hotel	Viking
1982	Robert Stone	A Flag for Sunrise	Alfred A. Knopf
1983	Thomas Keneally	Schindler's Ark	Simon & Schuster
1984	Milan Kundera	The Unbearable Lightness of Being	Harper & Row
1985	Louise Erdrich	Love Medicine	Holt, Rinehart and Winston
1986	Margaret Atwood	The Handmaid's Tale	Houghton Mifflin
1987	James Welch	Fools Crow	Viking
1988	Gabriel García Marquez	Love in the Time of Cholera	Alfred A. Knopf
1989	Fay Weldon	The Heart of the Country	Viking
1990	Edna O'Brien	Lantern Slides	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
1991	Allan Gurganus	White People	Alfred A. Knopf
1992	Art Spiegelman	Maus II, A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began	Pantheon Books
1993	Barbara Kingsolver	Pigs in Heaven	HarperCollins
1994	David Malouf	Remembering Babylon	Pantheon Books
1995	William Boyd	The Blue Afternoon	Alfred A. Knopf
1996	Rohinton Mistry	A Fine Balance	Alfred A. Knopf
1997	James Carlos Blake	In the Rogue Blood	Avon Books
1998	W. G. Sebald with Michael Hulse (trans.)	The Rings of Saturn	New Directions
1999	Amit Chaudhuri	Freedom Song: Three Novels	Alfred A. Knopf
2000	David Means	Assorted Fire Events	Context Books
2001	Mary Robison	Why Did I Ever	Counterpoint	^[22]
2002	Ian McEwan	Atonement	Nan A. Talese/Doubleday
2003	Pete Dexter	Train	Doubleday	^[31]
2004	Colm Tóibín	The Master	Scribner
2005	Gabriel García Márquez with Edith Grossman (trans.)	Memories of My Melancholy Whores	Alfred A. Knopf	^[2]
2006	A. B. Yehoshua with Hillel Halkin (trans.)	A Woman in Jerusalem	Harcourt	^[3]
2007	Andrew O'Hagan	Be Near Me	Harcourt
2008	Marilynne Robinson	Home	Farrar, Straus and Giroux	^[4]
2009	Rafael Yglesias	A Happy Marriage	Scribner	^[5]
2010	Jennifer Egan	A Visit from the Goon Squad	Alfred A. Knopf	^[6]
2011	Alex Shakar	Luminarium	SOHO Press	^[7]
2012	Ben Fountain	Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk	HarperCollins Publishers / Ecco	^[8]
2013	Ruth Ozeki	A Tale for the Time Being	Viking	^[9]
2014	Siri Hustvedt	The Blazing World	Simon & Schuster	^[10]
2015	Valeria Luiselli	The Story of My Teeth	Coffee House Press
2016	Adam Haslett	Imagine Me Gone	Little, Brown and Company	^[12]
2017	Mohsin Hamid	Exit West	Riverhead Books	^[13]
2018	Rebecca Makkai	The Great Believers	Viking	^[14]
2019	Ben Lerner	The Topeka School	Farrar, Straus and Giroux	^[15]^[25]
2020	David Diop with Anna Moschovakis (trans.)	At Night All Blood Is Black	Farrar, Straus and Giroux	^[26]
2021	Véronique Tadjo	In the Company of Men	Don Quichotte	^[17]^[18]
2022	Mircea Cărtărescu with Sean Cotter (trans.)	Solenoid	Deep Vellum	^[27]^[20]
2023	Ed Park	Same Bed Different Dreams	Random House	^[28]^[29]

Graphic Novel/Comics

*Los Angeles Book Prize* for Graphic Novel winners
Year	Author	Title	Publisher	Ref.
2009	David Mazzucchelli	Asterios Polyp	Pantheon	^[5]
2010	Adam Hines	Duncan the Wonder Dog: Show One	AdHouse Books	^[6]
2011	Carla Speed McNeil	Finder: Voice	Dark Horse	^[7]
2012	Sammy Harkham	Everything Together: Collected Stories	PictureBox	^[8]
2013	Ulli Lust	Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life	Fantagraphics	^[9]
2014	Jaime Hernandez	The Love Bunglers	Fantagraphics	^[10]
2015	Riad Sattouf	Arab of the Future: A Childhood in the Middle East, 1978–1984	Metropolitan Books
2016	Nick Drnaso	Beverly	Drawn & Quarterly	^[12]
2017	Leslie Stein	Present	Drawn & Quarterly	^[13]
2018	Tillie Walden	On A Sunbeam	First Second Books	^[14]
2019	Eleanor Davis	The Hard Tomorrow	Drawn & Quarterly	^[15]
2020	Bishakh Kumar Som	Apsara Engine		^[16]
2021	R. Kikuo Johnson	No One Else	Fantagraphics	^[17]^[18]
2022	Jamila Rowser and Robyn Smith	Wash Day Diaries		^[20]
2023	Emily Carroll	A Guest in the House	First Second Books	^[21]

History

*Los Angeles Times* Book Prize for History winners
Year	Author	Title	Publisher	Ref.
1980	Ronald Steel	Walter Lippmann and the American Century	Atlantic/Little, Brown and Co.
1981	Ray Allen Billington	Land of Savagery/Land of Promise	W.W. Norton & Company
1982	Jonathan D. Spence	The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution, 1895–1980	Viking
1983	Fernand Braudel	The Wheels of Commerce	Harper & Row
1984	Robert Darnton	The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History	Basic Books
1985	Evan S. Connell	Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Bighorn	North Point Press
1986	Geoffrey Hosking	The First Socialist Society: A History of the Soviet Union from Within	Harvard University Press
1987	Robert Jay Lifton	The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide		^[32]
1988	Eric Foner	Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877	Harper & Row
1989	Neal Gabler	An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood	Crown
1990	Richard Fletcher	The Quest for El Cid	Alfred A. Knopf
1991	Nicholas Lemann	The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America	Alfred A. Knopf
1992	Alexander Stille	Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families under Fascism	Summit
1993	Anthony Grafton	New Worlds, Ancient Texts: The Power of Tradition and the Shock of Discovery	Harvard University Press
1994	George Chauncey	Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890–1940	Basic Books
1995	Jackson Lears	Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America	Basic Books
1996	Neal Ascherson	Black Sea	Hill & Wang
1997	Orlando Figes	A People's Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution	Viking
1998	Roy Porter	The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity	W.W. Norton & Company
1999	John W. Dower	Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II	W.W. Norton & Company
2000	Alice Kaplan	The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach	University of Chicago Press
2001	Rick Perlstein	Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus	Hill and Wang Division/Farrar, Straus and Giroux	^[22]
2002	Michael B. Oren	Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East	Oxford University Press
2003	Henry Wiencek	An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
2004	Geoffrey R. Stone	Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism	W.W. Norton & Company
2005	Adam Hochschild	Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves	Houghton Mifflin	^[2]
2006	Lawrence Wright	The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11	Alfred A. Knopf	^[3]
2007	Tim Weiner	Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA	Doubleday
2008	Mark Mazower	Hitler's Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe	Penguin Press	^[4]
2009	Kevin Starr	Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance 1950–1963	Oxford University Press	^[5]
2010	Thomas Powers	The Killing of Crazy Horse	Alfred A. Knopf	^[6]
2011	Richard White	Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America	W.W. Norton & Company	^[7]
2012	Fergus M. Bordewich	America's Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise That Preserved the Union	Simon & Schuster	^[8]
2013	Christopher Clark	The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914	HarperCollins	^[9]
2014	Adam Tooze	The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916–1931	Viking	^[10]
2015	Dan Ephron	Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel	W.W. Norton & Company
2016	Benjamin Madley	An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846–1873	Yale University Press	^[12]
2017	Dan Egan	The Death and Life of the Great Lakes	W.W. Norton & Company	^[13]
2018	Julia Boyd	Travelers in the Third Reich: The Rise of Fascism: 1919–1945	Pegasus Books	^[14]
2019	Stephanie Jones-Rogers	They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South	Yale University Press	^[15]
2020	Martha S. Jones	Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All	Basic Books	^[26]
2021	Ada Ferrer	Cuba: An American History	Scribner	^[17]^[18]
2022	Margaret A. Burnham	By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow’s Legal Executioners	W.W. Norton & Company	^[20]
2023	Joya Chatterji	Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century		^[28]^[29]

Mystery/thriller

*Los Angeles Times* Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller winners
Year	Author	Title	Publisher	Ref.
2000	Val McDermid	A Place of Execution	St. Martin's Press/Minotaur
2001	T. Jefferson Parker	Silent Joe	Hyperion	^[22]
2002	George P. Pelecanos	Hell to Pay	Little, Brown and Company
2003	George P. Pelecanos	Soul Circus	Little, Brown and Company
2004	Kem Nunn	Tijuana Straits	Scribner
2005	Robert Littell	Legends: A Novel of Dissimulation	Overlook Press	^[2]
2006	Michael Connelly	Echo Park		^[3]
2007	Karin Fossum with Charlotte Barslund (trans.)	The Indian Bride	Harcourt
2008	Michael Koryta	Envy the Night	Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's /Minotaur	^[4]
2009	Stuart Neville	The Ghosts of Belfast	SOHO Press	^[5]
2010	Tom Franklin	Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter	William Morrow and Co.	^[6]
2011	Stephen King	11/22/63	Scribner	^[7]
2012	Tana French	Broken Harbor	Viking	^[8]
2013	Robert Galbraith (J. K. Rowling)	The Cuckoo's Calling	Mulholland Books/Little, Brown and Company	^[9]
2014	Tom Bouman	Dry Bones in the Valley	W.W. Norton and Company	^[10]
2015	Don Winslow	The Cartel	Alfred A. Knopf
2016	Bill Beverly	Dodgers	Crown	^[12]
2017	Joyce Carol Oates	A Book of American Martyrs	Ecco	^[13]
2018	Oyinkan Braithwaite	My Sister, the Serial Killer	Viking	^[14]
2019	Steph Cha	Your House Will Pay	Ecco	^[15]^[25]
2020	S. A. Cosby	Blacktop Wasteland	Flatiron Books	^[26]
2021	Megan Abbott	The Turnout	G.P. Putnam’s Sons	^[17]^[18]
2022	Alex Segura	Secret Identity: A Novel	Flatiron Books	^[27]^[20]
2023	Ivy Pochoda	Sing Her Down	Farrar, Straus and Giroux	^[28]^[29]

Poetry

*Los Angeles Times* Book Prize for Poetry winners
Year	Author	Title	Publisher	Ref.
1980	Robert Kelly	Kill the Messenger	Black Sparrow
1981	Ntozake Shange	Three Pieces	St. Martin's Press
1982	Allen Ginsberg	Plutonian Ode and Other Poems, 1977–1980	City Lights
1983	James Merrill	The Changing Light at Sandover	Atheneum
1984	Charles Olson	The Maximus Poems	University of California Press
1985	X.J. Kennedy	Cross Ties	University of Georgia Press
1986	Derek Walcott	Collected Poems, 1948–1984	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
1987	William Meredith	Partial Accounts: New and Selected Poems	Alfred A. Knopf
1988	Richard Wilbur	New and Collected Poems	Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
1989	Donald Hall	The One Day: A Poem in Three Parts	Ticknor & Fields/ Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
1990	John Caddy	The Color of Mesabi Bones	Milkweed
1991	Philip Levine	What Work Is	Alfred A. Knopf
1992	Adrienne Rich	An Atlas of the Difficult World: Poems 1988-1991	W.W. Norton & Company
1993	Mark Doty	My Alexandria	University of Illinois Press
1994	Carolyn Forché	The Angel of History	HarperCollins
1995	Robert Pinsky	The Inferno of Dante	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
1996	Alan Shapiro	Mixed Company	The University of Chicago Press
1997	Charles Wright	Black Zodiac	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
1998	Alice Notley	Mysteries of Small Houses	Penguin Press
1999	C. K. Williams	Repair: Poems	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
2000	Gjertrud Schnackenberg	The Throne of Labdacus	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
2001	Anne Carson	The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos	Alfred A. Knopf	^[22]
2002	Cynthia Zarin	The Watercourse: Poems	Alfred A. Knopf
2003	Anthony Hecht	Collected Later Poems	Alfred A. Knopf
2004	Richard Howard	Inner Voices: Selected Poems, 1963–2003	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
2005	Jack Gilbert	Refusing Heaven: Poems	Alfred A. Knopf	^[2]
2006	Frederick Seidel	Ooga-Booga	Farrar, Straus and Giroux	^[3]
2007	Stanley Plumly	Old Heart: Poems	W.W. Norton & Company
2008	Frank Bidart	Watching the Spring Festival: Poems	Farrar, Straus and Giroux	^[4]
2009	Brenda Hillman	Practical Water	Wesleyan University Press	^[5]
2010	Maxine Kumin	Where I Live: New & Selected Poems 1990–2010	W.W. Norton & Company	^[6]
2011	Carl Phillips	Double Shadow: Poems	Farrar, Straus and Giroux	^[7]
2012	Louise Glück	Poems 1962–2012	Farrar, Straus and Giroux	^[8]
2013	Ron Padgett	Collected Poems	Coffee House Press	^[9]
2014	Claudia Rankine	Citizen: An American Lyric	Graywolf Press	^[10]
2015	Jorie Graham	From the New World: Poems 1976–2014	Ecco/HarperCollins
2016	Rosmarie Waldrop	Gap Gardening: Selected Poems	New Directions	^[12]
2017	Patricia Smith	Incendiary Art: Poems	TriQuarterly/Northwestern University Press	^[13]^[33]
2018	Carl Phillips	Wild is the Wind: Poems	Farrar, Straus and Giroux	^[14]
2019	Ilya Kaminsky	Deaf Republic: Poems	Graywolf Press	^[15]^[25]
2020	Victoria Chang	Obit		^[26]
2021	Diane Seuss	frank: sonnets	Graywolf Press	^[17]^[18]
2022	Dionne Brand	Nomenclature: New and Collected Poems	Duke University Press	^[27]^[20]
2023	Airea D. Matthews	Bread and Circus: Poems	Scribner	^[21]

Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction

The Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction winners
Year	Author	Title	Publisher	Ref.
2019	Marlon James	Black Leopard, Red Wolf		^[15]^[34]
2020	Stephen Graham Jones	The Only Good Indians		^[26]
2021	Zen Cho	Spirits Abroad: Stories	Small Beer	^[17]^[18]
2022	Nicola Griffith	Spear		^[20]
2023	Tananarive Due	The Reformatory	Saga Press	^[21]

Science and technology

*Los Angeles Times* Book Prize for Science and Technology winners
Year	Author	Title	Publisher	Ref.
1989	Frans de Waal	Peacemaking among Primates	Harvard University Press
1990	Jane S. Smith	Patenting the Sun: Polio and the Salk Vaccine	William Morrow and Co.
1991	Grigori Medvedev	The Truth About Chernobyl	Basic Books
1992	Jared Diamond	The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal	HarperCollins
1993	Daniel McNeill and Paul Freiberger	Fuzzy Logic: The Discovery of a Revolutionary Computer Technology -- and How It Is Changing Our World	Simon & Schuster
1994	Jonathan Weiner	The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time	Alfred A. Knopf
1995	Edward O. Wilson	Naturalist	Island Press
1996	Carl Sagan	The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark	Random House
1997	Steven Pinker	How the Mind Works	W.W. Norton & Company
1998	Douglas Starr	Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce	Alfred A. Knopf
1999	Dava Sobel	Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love	Walker and Company
2000	James Le Fanu, M.D.	The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine	Carroll & Graf
2001	Richard Hamblyn	The Invention of Clouds: How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies	Farrar, Straus and Giroux	^[22]
2002	Brenda Maddox	Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA	HarperCollins
2003	Philip J. Hilts	Protecting America’s Health: The FDA, Business, and One Hundred Years of Regulation	Alfred A. Knopf
2004	Charles Wohlforth	The Whale and the Supercomputer: On the Northern Front of Climate Change	North Point Press / Farrar, Straus and Giroux
2005	Diana Preston	Before the Fallout: From Marie Curie to Hiroshima	Walker & Company	^[2]
2006	Eric R. Kandel	In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind	W.W. Norton & Company	^[3]
2007	Douglas Hofstadter	I Am a Strange Loop	Basic Books
2008	Leonard Susskind	The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics	Little, Brown and Company	^[4]
2009	Graham Farmelo	The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom	Basic Books/Perseus Book Group	^[5]
2010	Oren Harman	The Price of Altruism: George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness	W.W. Norton & Company	^[6]
2011	Sylvia Nasar	Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius	Simon & Schuster	^[7]
2012	Florence Williams	Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History	W.W. Norton & Company	^[8]
2013	Alan Weisman	Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth?	Little, Brown and Company	^[9]
2014	Elizabeth Kolbert	The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History	Henry Holt & Co	^[10]
2015	Andrea Wulf	The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World	Alfred A. Knopf
2016	Luke Dittrich	Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets	Random House	^[12]
2017	Robert Sapolsky	Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst	Penguin Books	^[13]
2018	Beth Macy	Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America	Little, Brown and Company	^[14]
2019	Maria Popova	Figuring	Pantheon	^[15]^[25]
2020	Sara Seager	The Smallest Lights in the Universe: A Memoir	Crown	^[26]
2021	Chanda Prescod-Weinstein	The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred	Bold Type Books	^[17]^[18]
2022	Sabrina Imbler	How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures	Little, Brown and Company	^[27]^[20]
2023	Eugenia Cheng	Is Math Real? How Simple Questions Lead Us To Mathematics’ Deepest Truths.		^[28]^[29]

Young adult literature

*Los Angeles Times* Book Prize for Young Adult Literature winners
Year	Author	Title	Publisher	Ref.
1998	Joan Bauer	Rules of the Road	G.P. Putnam's Sons
1999	Robert Cormier	Frenchtown Summer	Delacorte Press
2000	Jacqueline Woodson	Miracle's Boys	G.P. Putnam's Son
2001	Mildred D. Taylor	The Land	Phyllis Fogelman Books / G.P. Putnam's Sons
2002	M. T. Anderson	Feed	Candlewick Press
2003	Jennifer Donnelly	A Northern Light	Harcourt Children's Books
2004	Melvin Burgess	Doing It	Henry Holt Books for Young Readers
2005	Per Nilsson with Tara Chace (trans.)	You & You & You	Front Street/Boyds Mills Press	^[2]
2006	Coe Booth	Tyrell	Push / Scholastic	^[3]
2007	Philip Reeve	A Darkling Plain	Scholastic
2008	Terry Pratchett	Nation	HarperCollins	^[4]
2009	Elizabeth Partridge	Marching for Freedom: Walk Together Children and Don’t You Grow Weary	Viking Children's Books/Penguin Group	^[5]
2010	Megan Whalen Turner	A Conspiracy of Kings	Greenwillow/HarperCollins	^[6]
2011	Pete Hautman	The Big Crunch	Scholastic	^[7]
2012	A. S. King	Ask the Passengers	Little, Brown and Company	^[8]
2013	Gene Yang	Boxers and Saints	First Second/Macmillan	^[9]
2014	Candace Fleming	The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia	Schwartz & Wade/Random House Children's	^[10]
2015	Marilyn Nelson	My Seneca Village	Namelos
2016	Frances Hardinge	The Lie Tree	Harry N. Abrams	^[12]
2017	Jason Reynolds	Long Way Down		^[13]
2018	Elizabeth Acevedo	The Poet X	HarperTeen	^[14]
2019	Malla Nunn	When the Ground is Hard	G.P. Putnam	^[15]^[35]
2020	Yusef Salaam and Ibi Zoboi	Punching the Air	Balzer + Bray	^[16]
2021	Rita Williams-Garcia	A Sitting in St. James	Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins Children’s Books	^[17]^[18]
2022	Lyn Miller-Lachmann	Torch		^[20]
2023	Amber McBride	Gone Wolf	Feiwel & Friends	^[21]

Innovator's Award

Innovator's Award winners
Year	Author	Ref.
2009	Dave Eggers	^[5]
2010	Powell's Books, bookstore	^[6]
2011	Figment, self-publishing platform	^[7]
2012	Margaret Atwood	^[8]
2013	John Green
2014	LeVar Burton	^[10]
2015	James Patterson
2016	Rueben Martinez
2017	Glory Edim
2018	Library of America
2019	WriteGirl	^[25]
2020	Book Industry Charitable Foundation	^[26]
2021	Reginald Dwayne Betts	^[17]
2022	Freedom to Read Foundation	^[20]^[27]

Robert Kirsch Award

The Robert Kirsch Award winners
Year	Author	Ref.
1980	Wallace Stegner
1981	Wright Morris
1982	Ross Macdonald
1983	M. F. K. Fisher
1984	Christopher Isherwood
1985	Janet Lewis
1986	Kay Boyle
1987	Paul Horgan
1988	Thom Gunn
1989	Karl Shapiro
1990	Czeslaw Milosz
1991	Ken Kesey
1992	Diane Johnson
1993	Carolyn See
1994	Brian Moore
1995	Stephen J. Pyne
1996	Gary Snyder
1997	Ray Bradbury
1998	John Sanford
1999	Ursula K. Le Guin
2000	Lawrence Ferlinghetti
2001	Tillie Olsen
2002	Larry McMurtry
2003	Ishmael Reed
2004	Tony Hillerman
2005	Joan Didion	^[2]
2006	William Kittredge
2007	Maxine Hong Kingston
2008	Robert Alter	^[4]
2009	Evan S. Connell	^[5]
2010	Beverly Cleary	^[6]
2011	Rudolfo Anaya	^[7]
2012	Kevin Starr	^[8]
2013	Susan Straight	^[9]
2014	TC Boyle	^[10]
2015	Juan Felipe Herrera
2016	Thomas McGuane
2017	John Rechy
2018	Terry Tempest Williams
2019	Walter Mosley	^[25]
2020	Leslie Marmon Silko
2021	Luis J. Rodriguez	^[17]
2022	James Ellroy	^[20]^[27]

References

External links

Honorees by Year and Award Los Angeles Times Book Prizes.

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