Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalists Announced
20th annual literary awards to be presented April 29

NEW YORK, February 25, 2000 - The Los Angeles Times today announced the finalists for the 20th annual Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, which will be awarded April 29 in Los Angeles at UCLA's Royce Hall.

The Los Angeles Times Book Prizes - which include a $1,000 cash award - will be presented in eight categories: biography, current interest, history, poetry, science and technology, fiction, first fiction, and young adult fiction.

The 40 finalists were announced during a reception at the National Arts Club in New York hosted by Los Angeles Times Associate Editor Narda Zacchino; Kenneth Turan, director of the Book Prizes and Times film critic; and Times Book Editor Steve Wasserman.

Book Prize finalists are:

Biography

  • "My Grandfather's House: A Genealogy of Doubt and Faith" by Robert Clark (Picador USA)
  • "Byron: Child of Passion, Fool of Fame" by Benita Eisler (Alfred A. Knopf)
  • "Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself" by Jerome Loving (University of California Press)
  • "Rembrandt's Eyes" by Simon Schama (Alfred A. Knopf)
  • "Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette" by Judith Thurman (Alfred A. Knopf)<

Current Interest

  • "A Border Passage: From Cairo to America - A Woman's Journey" by Leila Ahmed (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
  • "Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War" byMark Bowden (Grove/Atlantic)
  • "Sidewalk" by Mitchell Duneier (with Photographs by Ovie Carter) (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
  • "Chosen by God: A Brother'sJourney" by Joshua Hammer (Hyperion)
  • "An Affair of State: The Investigation, Impeachment, and Trial of President Clinton" by Richard A. Posner (Harvard University Press)

History

  • "Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad" by David Haward Bain (Viking)
  • "Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II" by John W. Dower (W.W. Norton & Company)
  • "The First World War" by John Keegan (Alfred A. Knopf)
  • "Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945" by David M. Kennedy (The Oxford History of the United States, Vol. 9) (Oxford University Press)
  • "The Holocaust in American Life" by Peter Novick (Houghton Mifflin)

Poetry

  • "The Father of the Predicaments" by Heather McHugh (Wesleyan University Press/University Press of New England)
  • "The Oval Hour" by Kathleen Peirce (University of Iowa Press)
  • "The Dreamhouse" by Tom Sleigh (Phoenix Poets Series) (University of Chicago Press)
  • "The Red Leaves of Night" by David St. John (HarperCollins Publishers)
  • "Repair: Poems" by C.K. Williams (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Science and Technology (category added in 1989)

  • "Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds" by Bernd Heinrich (Cliff Street Books, HarperCollins Publishers)
  • "The River: A Journey to the Source of HIV and AIDS" by Edward Hooper (Little, Brown and Company)
  • "Lucy's Legacy: Sex and Intelligence in Human Evolution" by Alison Jolly (Harvard University Press)
  • "The Code Book: The Evolution of Secrecy from Mary, Queen of Scots to Quantum Cryptography" by Simon Singh (Doubleday Books)
  • "Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love" by Dava Sobel (Walker and Company)

Fiction

  • "Freedom Song: Three Novels" by Amit Chaudhuri (Alfred A. Knopf)
  • "House of Sand and Fog" by Andre Dubus, III (W.W. Norton & Company)
  • "Plainsong" by Kent Haruf (Alfred A. Knopf)
  • "Waiting" by Ha Jin (Pantheon Books)
  • "Close Range: Wyoming Stories" by Annie Proulx (Scribner)


The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction (category added in 1991)

  • "By the Shore: A Novel" by Galaxy Craze (Grove/Atlantic)
  • "For the Relief of Unbearable Urges" by Nathan Englander (Alfred A. Knopf)
  • "Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri (Houghton Mifflin)
  • "Last Things" by Jenny Offill (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
  • "Amy and Isabelle: A Novel" by Elizabeth Strout (Random House)

Young Adult Fiction (category added in 1998)

  • "Skellig" by David Almond (Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers)
  • "Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
  • "Frenchtown Summer" by Robert Cormier (Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers)
  • "Monster" by Walter Dean Myers (HarperCollins Children's Books)
  • "Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy" by Sonya Sones (HarperCollins Children's Books)

The Times Book Prize finalists were selected by seven three-member committees. Most of the judges are published authors and serve a two-year term. None of the judges are Los Angeles Times employees.

The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction commemorates the contributions of the former Times book editor and Book Prize program founder.

A separate, anonymous panel will select the winner of the annual Robert Kirsch Award, which is presented to a living author who has resided in or whose work focuses on the Western United States. The award is named after The Times' late book critic who died in 1980 following a 25-year career as a novelist, editor and one of the nation's foremost book critics.