Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winners

2008

Paula J. Giddings, Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching (Amistad/HarperCollins)

2007

Simon Sebag Montefiore, Young Stalin (Alfred A. Knopf)

2006

Neal Gabler, The Triumph of the American Imagination
(Alfred A. Knopf)

2005

Hilary Spurling, Matisse the Master: A Life of Henri Matisse, the Conquest of Colour, 1909-1954 (Alfred A. Knopf)

2004

de Kooning: An American Master by Mark Stevens and
Annalyn Swan (Alfred A. 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 (Alfred A. Knopf)

2001

Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris (Random House)

2000

Jefferson Davis, American by William J. Cooper, Jr. (Alfred A. Knopf)

1999

Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
(Alfred A. Knopf)

1998

Lindbergh by A. Scott Berg (G.P. Putnam's Sons)

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 1884-1993 by Blanche Wiesen Cook (Viking)

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)

1980

[Biography award concurrent with this year's History award]

Top >

2008

Barton Gellman, Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency
(The Penguin Press)

2007

Elizabeth D. Samet, Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

2006

Ian Buruma, Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance (Penguin Press)

2005

Anthony Shadid, Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War (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]

2008

Marilynne Robinson, Home (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

2007

Andrew O’Hagan, Be Near Me (Harcourt)

2006

A.B. Yehoshua, A Woman in Jerusalem [translated from the Hebrew by Hillel Halkin] (Harcourt)

2005

Gabriel García Márquez, Memories of My Melancholy Whores [translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman] (Alfred A. Knopf)

2004

The Master: A Novel 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 Louis Erdrich (Holt, Rinehart and Winston)

1984

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (Harper & Row)

1983

Schindler's List 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)

Top >

2008

Mark Mazower, Hitler’s Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe (The Penguin Press)

2007

Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (Doubleday)

2006

Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Alfred A. Knopf)

2005

Adam Hochschild, Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves (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

[No award in 1987]

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)

Award Added in 2000

2008

Michael Koryta, Envy the Night (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Minotaur)

2007

Karin Fossum {Translated by Charlotte Barslund} The Indian Bride (Harcourt)

2006

Michael Connelly, Echo Park: A Novel (Little, Brown)

2005

Robert Littell, Legends: A Novel of Dissimulation (Overlook Press)

2004

Tijuana Straits: A Novel by Kem Nunn (Scribner)

2003

Soul Circus: A Novel by George P. Pelecanos (Little, Brown)

2002

Hell to Pay: A Novel by George P. Pelecanos (Little, Brown and Company)

2001

Silent Joe by T. Jefferson Parker (Hyperion)

2000

A Place of Execution: A Novel by Val McDermid (St. Martin's Press/Minotaur)

2008

Frank Bidart, Watching the Spring Festival: Poems (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

2007

Stanley Plumly, Old Heart: Poems (W.W. Norton)

2006

Frederick Seidel, Ooga-Booga (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

2005

Jack Gilbert, Refusing Heaven: Poems (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 Phillip 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)

Award Added in 1989

2008

Leonard Susskind, The Black Hole War: My Battle with
Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics (Little, Brown and Co.)

2007

Douglas Hofstadter, I Am A Strange Loop (Basic Books)

2006

Eric R. Kandel, In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind (W.W. Norton)

2005

Diana Preston, Before the Fallout: From Marie Curie to Hiroshima (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)

Award Added in 1998

2008

Terry Pratchett, Nation (HarperCollins)

2007

Philip Reeve, A Darkling Plain (The Hungry City Chronicles) (Eos Books/HarperCollins)

2006

Coe Booth, Tyrell (Push / Scholastic)

2005

Per Nilsson, You & You & You [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)

Award Added in 1991

2008

Zoë Ferraris, Finding Nouf (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

2007

Dinaw Mengestu, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (Riverhead Books)

2006

Alice Greenway, White Ghost Girls (Black Cat / Grove/Atlantic)

2005

Uzodinma Iweala, Beasts of No Nation: A Novel (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: A Novel by Arthur Phillips (Random House)

2001

The Dark Room by Rachel Seiffert (Pantheon Books)

2000

The Romantics: A Novel by Pankaj Mishra (Random House)

1999

Amy and Isabelle: A Novel 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)