Northern California Book Awards Ceremony on Sunday April 19th

In a free ceremony on Sunday afternoon at Main Library, the Northern California Book Reviewers are going to present the Fred Cody Lifetime Achievement Award to Dorothy Bryant, and a Special Recognition Award to Eric Karpeles for his book of paintings inspired by Proust. They’ll also announce the winners of seven other categories: General Nonfiction (read: journalism and history), Creative Nonfiction (read: memoir), Translation, Fiction, Poetry, and Children’s Lit.

It’s a strong field in general: for example the nominees in general nonfiction are Towers of Gold, The Dominant Animal, A Romance on Three Legs, Physics for Future Presidents, and In Defense of Food. Holy cow, I don’t even want to guess in this category, though I’m pretty sure it won’t be Mr. Pollan’s book that wins, as he’s had more than enough sunshine for now.

Not to be outdone, the nominees in “creative nonfiction” are John Adam’s memoir (check out this post I did about it), Beautiful Boy, The Middle Place, and Susan Griffin’s book about citizenship (just call us Jacob).

In translation, the only nominee I know of is Katherine Silver’s translation of Moya’s Senselessness. (Check out the Quarterly Conversation review that put me on to this one.) Fiction nominees include Lady Lazarus and No One You Know, poetry noms include August Kleinzahler and Rusty Morrison (those would be the two I happen to have on my shelf) and children’s books are — based on what little I know about the category — as strong as the other categories, with entries from the Yeps, Gary Soto, and that story about the Steinbeck Library.

The ceremony will be in Koret Auditorium, Main Library, from 1 to 2:30, with a reception and book-signing afterwards. Full info here.

posted: 09 April 17
under: The City Word