Finalists named for Times Book Prizes

Books with sweeping themes -- on topics such as Sept. 11 and Vietnam -- are among the finalists for the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, along with works of fiction exploring more intimate spaces, including the lives of young Asian Americans in L.A. and neighbors in Los Feliz.

Finalists in nine categories were announced Friday night in New York; winners will be recognized April 24 at an awards ceremony during the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Each winner will receive a $1,000 award. The Robert Kirsch Award also will be presented, recognizing an author who resides in, or writes about, the West. Presenters will include poet Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts; bestselling children’s writer R.L. Stine and state Librarian Kevin Starr.

Los Angeles Times Book Editor Steve Wasserman said of the nominations: “It’s one of the most accomplished lists in recent years.”

“I’m tempted to say you could play pin the tail on the donkey and walk across the room, touch any title on the list, and you’d find a deserving potential winner,” Wasserman said.

The field of nominees ranges from Pulitzer Prize winner David Maraniss for his book on Vietnam, “They Marched Into Sunlight,” in the history category to Anthony Swofford in the current interest category for “Jarhead,” a memoir of his days as a 20-year-old Marine sniper during the Gulf War. Other nominees include Altadena writer Michelle Huneven for “Jamesland,” a novel set in Los Feliz, and Pete Dexter for “Train,” set in 1950s L.A., in the fiction category; and David Marshall Chan for “Goblin Fruit,” a collection of stories about Asian Americans in L.A., in the first fiction category.

A couple of finalists already have won recognition for their work. Mark Haddon, a finalist in the first fiction category, won the 2003 Whitbread Book of the Year for his debut novel, “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.”

Rebecca Solnit, a finalist in the biography category, won the National Book Critics Circle criticism prize Thursday for “River of Shadows.”

Finalists were selected by three-member committees, none of which included Times employees. The Times’ Festival of Books, one of the largest of its kind on the West Coast, will be held at UCLA.

Finalists in some categories:

Biography: Deirdre Bair, “Jung: A Biography”; T.J. Binyon, “Pushkin: A Biography”; Robert Hughes, “Goya”; Neil Smith, “American Empire: Roosevelt’s Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization”; Rebecca Solnit, “River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West.”

Current Interest: Jon Krakauer, “Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith”; Gerald Posner, “Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11”; Carlo Rotella, “Cut Time: An Education at the Fights”; Anthony Swofford, “Jarhead: A Marine’s Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles”; Ross Terrill, “The New Chinese Empire -- And What It Means for the United States.”

Fiction: Sherman Alexie, “Ten Little Indians: Stories”; Pete Dexter, “Train: A Novel”; Michelle Huneven, “Jamesland”; Jhumpa Lahiri, “The Namesake”; Tobias Wolff, “Old School: A Novel.”

History: Anne Applebaum, “Gulag: A History”; Louis Crompton, “Homosexuality and Civilization”; David Maraniss, “They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967”; Timothy Tackett, “When the King Took Flight”; Henry Wiencek, “An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America.”

Mystery/Thriller: Neil Gordon, “The Company You Keep”; Peter Lovesey, “The House Sitter”; Henning Mankell, “The Dogs of Riga: A Kurt Wallander Mystery” [translated from the Swedish by Laurie Thompson]; Rebecca Pawel, “Death of a Nationalist”; George P. Pelecanos, “Soul Circus: A Novel.”

Poetry: Henri Cole, “Middle Earth”; Anthony Hecht, “Collected Later Poems”; Charles Simic, “The Voice at 3:00 A.M.: Selected Late & New Poems”; Rosanna Warren, “Departure: Poems”; Kevin Young, “Jelly Roll: A Blues.”