News Release

Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalists Announced
22nd annual literary awards to be presented Apr. 27, 2002

LOS ANGELES, March 4, 2002 – The Los Angeles Times announced the finalists for the 22nd annual Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, which will be awarded at a public ceremony to be held Apr. 27, 2002 at UCLA's Royce Hall in Los Angeles.

The 45 Book Prize finalists were announced during an evening reception held Mar. 1 at the National Arts Club in New York. The event was hosted by Los Angeles Times Features Editor Rick Flaste; Kenneth Turan, director of the Book Prizes and Times film critic; and Times Book Editor Steve Wasserman.

Prize-winning author, KCRW-FM commentator and Public Radio International contributor Sandra Tsing Loh will emcee the Apr. 27 Book Prize awards ceremony, which is the highlight of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. The festival will be held Apr. 27-28 on the UCLA campus.

The Book Prizes -- which include a $1,000 cash award -- are presented in nine categories: biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction, history, mystery/thriller, poetry, science and technology, and young adult fiction.

In addition to the nine single-title categories, the annual Robert Kirsch Award will recognize the body of work of an author who resides in and/or whose work focuses on the Western United States. The award is named after the late Robert Kirsch, who served as The Times' book critic for more than 25 years prior to his death in 1980. There are no finalists for this category. The winner also will be announced Apr. 27.

Book Prize Finalists

Biography
• Antonia Fraser, Marie Antoinette: The Journey (Nan A. Talese Books)
• Laura Hillenbrand, Seabiscuit: An American Legend (Random House)
• David McCullough, John Adams (Simon & Schuster)
• Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex (Random House)
• Adam Sisman, Boswell's Presumptuous Task: The Making of the Life of Dr. Johnson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Current Interest
• Stanley Cohen, States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering (Polity)
• Ann Crittenden, The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World Is Still the Least Valued (Metropolitan Books)
• John W. Dean, The Rehnquist Choice: The Untold Story of the Nixon Appointment that Redefined the Supreme Court (The Free Press)
• Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (Metropolitan Books)
• Ron Powers, Tom and Huck Don't Live Here Anymore: Childhood and Murder in the Heart of America (St. Martin's Press)

Fiction
• Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections: A Novel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Abdulrazak Gurnah, By the Sea (The New Press)
• Alice Munro, Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories (Alfred A. Knopf)
• Mary Robison, Why Did I Ever: A Novel (Counterpoint Press)
• Colson Whitehead, John Henry Days: A Novel (Doubleday Books)

Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction
• Nuala O'Faolain, My Dream of You (Riverhead Books)
• Nani Power, Crawling at Night: A Novel (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• Rachel Seiffert, The Dark Room (a Novel) (Pantheon Books)
• Manil Suri, The Death of Vishnu: A Novel (W.W. Norton)
• John Wray, The Right Hand of Sleep: A Novel (Alfred A. Knopf)

History
• G.E. Bentley Jr., The Stranger from Paradise: A Biography of William Blake (Yale University Press)
• Julian Jackson, France: The Dark Years, 1940-1944 (Oxford University Press)
• Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Rick Perlstein, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus (Hill & Wang)
• Garry Wills, Venice, Lion City: The Religion of Empire (Simon & Schuster)

Mystery/Thriller
• C.J. Box, Open Season: A Joe Pickett Novel (G.P. Putnam's Sons)
• Henry Bromell, Little America: A Novel (Alfred A. Knopf)
• Marshall Browne, The Wooden Leg of Inspector Anders (Thomas Dunne Books)
• David Fulmer, Chasing the Devil's Tail: A Storyville Mystery (Poisoned Pen Press)
• T. Jefferson Parker, Silent Joe: A Novel (Hyperion)

Poetry
• Anne Carson, The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos (Alfred A. Knopf)
• Alice Fulton, Felt: Poems (W.W. Norton)
• Louise Glück, The Seven Ages (Ecco)
• James Lasdun, Landscape with Chainsaw: Poems (W.W. Norton)
• Pattiann Rogers, Song of the World Becoming: New and Collected Poems, 1981-2001 (Milkweed Editions)

Science and Technology
• Sarah Flannery (with David Flannery), In Code: A Mathematical Journey (Workman Publishing Company)
• Richard Hamblyn, The Invention of Clouds: How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• David Hancocks, A Different Nature: The Paradoxical World of Zoos and Their Uncertain Future (University of California Press)
• Oliver Sacks, Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood (Alfred A. Knopf)
• Bryan Sykes, The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science that Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry (W.W. Norton)

Young Adult Fiction
• Kevin Crossley-Holland, The Seeing Stone (Arthur A. Levine Books)
• A.M. Jenkins, Damage (HarperCollins Children's Books)
• Norma Fox Mazer, Girlhearts (HarperCollins Children's Books)
• Beverley Naidoo, The Other Side of Truth (HarperCollins Children's Books)
• Mildred D. Taylor, The Land (Phyllis Fogelman Books)

Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalists were selected by eight three-member committees. (Fiction category judges also chose the First Fiction finalists.) Most of the judges are published authors and serve a two-year term. None of the judges, except for the Kirsch award, are current Los Angeles Times employees.

There is no nationality requirement for author nominees in any category. With the exception of significant new translations of a deceased author's work, all authors should be living at the time of U.S. publication.

###