Nominees for the Northern California Book Awards — presented by an eight-member consortium, Northern California Book Reviewers, Poetry Flash, Center for the Art of Translation, PEN West, Mechanics’ Institute, Red Room, the San Francisco Public Library and Friends of the San Francisco Public Library — have just been announced.
They fall into six categories:
Fiction
“Sequoia Gardens,” by Ernest J. Finney (Southern Methodist University Press); “A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion,” by Ron Hansen (Scribner); “Turn of Mind,” by Alice LaPlante (Atlantic Monthly Press); “Lola, California,” by Edie Meidav (Farrar, Straus and Giroux); and “We the Animals,” by Justin Torres (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).
General nonfiction
“Exorbitant Privilege: The Rise and Fall of the Dollar and the Future of the International Monetary System,” by Barry Eichengreen (Oxford University Press); “To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918,” by Adam Hochschild (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt); “The Shah,” by Abbas Milani (Palgrave Macmillan); “Natural History of San Francisco Bay, California History Guides,” by Ariel Rubissow Okamoto and Kathleen M. Wong (University of California Press); and “Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942,” by Ian W. Toll (W. W. Norton).
Creative nonfiction
“A Journey with Two Maps: Becoming a Woman Poet,” by Eavan Boland (W. W. Norton); “Everett Ruess: His Short Life, Mysterious Death, and Astonishing Afterlife,” by Philip L. Fradkin (University of California Press); “The Left Coast: California on the Edge,” by Philip L. Fradkin, photographs by Alex L. Fradkin (University of California Press); “Rereading Women: Thirty Years of Exploring Our Literary Traditions,” by Sandra M. Gilbert (W. W. Norton); and “Maya Roads: One Woman’s Journey Among the People of the Rainforest,” by Mary Jo McConahay (Chicago Review Press).
Poetry
“Ciento: 100 100-Word Love Poems,” by Lorna Dee Cervantes (Wings Press); “Come, Thief,” by Jane Hirshfield (Alfred A. Knopf); “Sugar Zone,” by Mary Mackey (Marsh Hawk Press); “When I Was a Poet,” by David Meltzer (City Lights); and “Thread,” by Michael Palmer (New Directions).
Translation
Fiction: Translation from Russian by Anne O. Fisher, “The Twelve Chairs,” by Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov (Northwestern University Press); translation from Spanish by Katherine Silver, “Tyrant Memory,” by Horacio Castellanos Moya (New Directions)
Poetry: Translation from Chinese by John Balcom of “After Many Autumns: A Collection of Chinese Buddhist Literature,” edited by John Gill and Susan Tidwell (Buddha’s Light Publishing); translation from Chinese by Andrea Lingenfelter of “The Changing Room,” by Zhai Yongming (Zephyr Press); and translation from Spanish by Arturo Mantecón of “My Naked Brain: Selected Poems of Leopoldo María Panero” (Swan Scythe Press)
Children’s literature
Young adult: “Instructions for a Broken Heart,” by Kim Culbertson (Sourcebooks); “Why We Broke Up,” by Daniel Handler, illustrations by Maira Kalman (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers); and “Clean,” by Amy Reed (Simon Pulse)
Younger readers: “Seabird in the Forest,” by Joan Dunning (Boyd Mills Press); “A Dazzling Display of Dogs, concrete poems” by Betsy Franco, illustrations by Michael Wertz (Tricycle Press); and “Far from Shore: Chronicles of an Open Ocean Voyage,” by Sophie Webb (Houghton Mifflin Books for Children).
In addition, a Recognition Award (for a book outside the categories) will be given for “Everything is its own reward, An All Over Coffee Collection,” by San Francisco writer Paul Madonna (City Lights), published in 2007 and described as a collection of “pen-and-ink cityscapes, micro stories, philosophical conversations and Zen-like one-liners.” This year’s Fred Cody Award for Lifetime Achievement goes to journalist, teacher and cultural critic Michael Pollan.
The awards will be presented by MC Sedge Thomson of radio’s “West Coast Live” June 10 at the San Francisco Library’s main branch (100 Larkin St., 1-2:30 p.m., Koret Auditorium). A book signing and reception with the authors will follow (in the Latino/Hispanic Room, 2:30-4 p.m.).
The awards ceremony is free and open to the public; information at (510) 525-5476, www.poetryflash.org.
Names of the unannounced winners will be made public June 12.
