Book and Media Reception – Page 5

October 19, 2015

Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction Shortlist Announced!

The American Library Association today announced the six books shortlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction, awarded for the previous year’s best fiction and nonfiction books written for adult readers and published in the United States. The two medal winners will be announced by selection committee chair Nancy Pearl at the RUSA’s Book and Media Awards event at ALA Midwinter Meeting & Exhibits in Boston on Sunday, January 10.

2016 shortlisted titles include:

Nonfiction

“H is for Hawk,” by Helen Macdonald, published by Grove Press, an imprint of Grove Atlantic, and distributed by Publishers Group West.

“Hold Still: A Memoir in Photographs,” by Sally Mann, published by Little, Brown, and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

“The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World,” by Andrea Wulf, published by published by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, LLC. New York.

Fiction

“The Book of Aron,” by Jim Shepard, published by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, LLC. New York.

“A Little Life: A Novel,” by Hanya Yanagihara, published by Doubleday, a division of Random House, LLC. New York.

“The Sympathizer,” by Viet Thanh Nguyen, published by Grove Press, an imprint of Grove Atlantic, and distributed by Publishers Group West.

This is the first time the Carnegie Medal winner announcements will be made at Midwinter Meeting & Exhibits, reflecting a new calendar for the awards, with the shortlist announced in October, the winners in January, and the popular celebratory event continuing at ALA Annual Conference each year. Winning authors each receive $5,000, and the four finalists each receive $1,500.

The awards, established in 2012, recognize the best fiction and nonfiction books for adult readers published in the U.S. in the previous year and serve as a guide to help adults select quality reading material. They are the first single-book awards for adult books given by the American Library Association and reflect the expert judgment and insight of library professionals who work closely with adult readers.

The Medals are made possible, in part, by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York in recognition of Andrew Carnegie’s deep belief in the power of books and learning to change the world, and are co-sponsored by ALA’s Booklist Publications and the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA).

September 24, 2015September 24, 2015

2016 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction Longlist Announced

Forty books (20 fiction, 20 nonfiction) comprising the longlist for the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction have been selected. The list is now available on the awards’ website. The six-title shortlist—three each for the fiction and nonfiction medals—will be chosen from these 40 titles and announced on October 19. The two medal winners will be announced by selection committee Chair Nancy Pearl at RUSA’s Book and Media Awards (BMAs) event at the ALA Midwinter Meeting from 5 p.m. – 7 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 10 in Boston.

Fiction

Acevedo, Chantel. The Distant Marvels. (Europa)

Boyle, T. C. The Harder They Come. (Ecco)

Campbell, Bonnie Jo. Mothers, Tell Your Daughters. (Norton)

Clegg, Bill. Did You Ever Have a Family. (Simon & Schuster/Scout)

Cusk, Rachel. Outline. (Farrar)

Enright, Anne. The Green Road. (Norton)

Franzen, Jonathan. Purity. (Farrar)

Gottlieb, Eli. Best Boy. (Norton/Liveright)

Hallberg, Garth Risk. City on Fire. (Knopf)

Hannaham, James. Delicious Foods. (Little, Brown)

Johnson, T. Geronimo. Welcome to Braggsville. (Morrow)

Meno, Joe. Marvel and a Wonder. (Akashic)

Nguyen, Viet Thanh. The Sympathizer. (Grove)

Pearlman, Edith. Honeydew. (Little, Brown)

Shepard, Jim. The Book of Aron. (Knopf)

Treuer, David. Prudence. (Riverhead)

Tyler, Anne. A Spool of Blue Thread. (Knopf)

Vollmann, William T. The Dying Grass. (Viking)

Williams, Joy. The Visiting Privilege: New and Collected Stories. (Knopf)

Yanagihara, Hanya. A Little Life. (Doubleday)

Nonfiction

Appy, Christian G. American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity. (Viking)

Berman, Ari. Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. (Farrar)

Chayes, Sarah. Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security.(Norton)

Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Between the World and Me. (Spiegel & Grau)

Fraser, Steve. The Age of Acquiescence: The Life and Death of American Resistance to Organized Wealth and Power. (Little, Brown)

Green, Kristen. Something Must Be Done about Prince Edward County: A Family, a Virginia Town, a Civil Rights Battle. (Harper)

Haygood, Wil. Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America. (Knopf)

Herrera, Hayden. Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi. (Farrar)

Macdonald, Helen. H Is for Hawk. (Grove)

Mann, Sally. Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs. (Little, Brown)

Marsh, Henry. Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery. (St. Martin’s/Thomas Dunne)

Nabokov, Peter. How the World Moves: The Odyssey of an American Indian Family. (Viking)

Parini, Jay. Empire of Self: A Life of Gore Vidal. (Doubleday)

Sacks, Oliver. On the Move. (Knopf)

Safina, Carl. Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel. (Holt)

Schiff, Stacy. The Witches: Salem, 1692. (Little, Brown)

Smith, Patti. M Train. (Knopf)

Weinberg, Steven. To Explain the World: The Discovery of Modern Science.(Harper)

Winchester, Simon. Pacific: Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators, Fading Empires, and the Coming Collision of the World’s Superpowers. (Harper)

Wulf, Andrea. Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World. (Knopf)

Find out more about the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction.

February 6, 2015February 11, 2015

RUSA announces 2015 book and media awards for adults

RUSA announced the top books in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and genre; audio books; and reference books for adults – including the Notable Books List, Reading List, Sophie Brody Medal, Listen List, Dartmouth Medal and Outstanding Reference Sources – at its Midwinter Meeting in Chicago.

A list of all the 2015 award winners follows:

Notable Books List for excellence in fiction, nonfiction and poetry:

Fiction

“All My Puny Sorrows” by Miriam Toews (McSweeneys)

“All the Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr (Scribner)

“The Bone Clocks: A Novel” by David Mitchell (Random House)

“The Children Act” by Ian McEwan (Nan A Talese)

“The Crane Wife” by Patrick Ness (Penguin)

“The Enchanted: A Novel” by Rene Denfeld (Harper)

“Narrow Road to the Deep North: A Novel” by Richard Flanagan (Alfred A. Knopf)

“On Such a Full Sea” by Chang-Rae Lee (Riverhead)

“Orfeo: A Novel” by Richard Powers (W.W. Norton)

“Something Rich and Strange: Selected Stories” by Ron Rash (Ecco)

“Station Eleven: A Novel” by Emily St. John Mandel (Alfred A. Knopf)

“Tigerman” by Nick Harkaway (Alfred A. Knopf)

Nonfiction

“The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution” by Jonathan Eig (W.W. Norton)

“Blood Royal: A True Tale of Crime and Detection in Medieval Paris” by Eric Jager (Little, Brown and Company)

“Dark Invasion: 1915 Germany’s Secret War and the Hunt for the First Terrorist Cell in America” by Howard Blum (Harper)

“Factory Man” by Beth Macy (Little, Brown and Company)

“In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeanette” by Hampton Sides (Doubleday)

“Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story” by Rick Bragg (Harper)

“Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption” by Bryan Stevenson (Spiegel & Grau)

“The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce’s Ulysses” by Kevin Birmingham (Penguin Press)

“No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State” by Glenn Greenwald (Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt)

“Pandora’s DNA: Tracing the Breast Cancer Genes Through History, Science, and One Family Tree” by Lizzie Stark (Chicago Review Press)

“The Secret History of Wonder Woman” by Jill Lepore (Alfred A. Knopf)

“The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History” by Elizabeth Kolbert (Henry Holt)

Poetry

“The Blue Buick: New and Selected Poems” by B.H.Fairchild (W.W. Norton)

“Gabriel: A Poem”, by Edward Hirsch (Knopf)

For a complete list of 2015 winners and annotations, see the official announcement here. For a list of past winners and more information on the award and Notable Books Council, visit the Notable Books Award page.

Reading List for excellence in genre fiction:

Adrenaline

“Broken Monsters” by Lauren Beukes (Mulholland Books)

Fantasy

“The Goblin Emperor” by Katherine Addison (Tor)

Historical Fiction

“Bitter Greens” by Kate Forsyth (Thomas Dunne)

Horror

“The Lesser Dead” by Christopher Buehlman (Penguin)

Mystery

“Murder at the Brightwell” by Ashley Weaver (Minotaur)

Romance

“A Bollywood Affair” by Sonali Dev (Kensington)

Science Fiction

“The Martian” by Andy Weir (Crown)

Women’s Fiction

“My Real Children” by Jo Walton (Tor)

For a complete list of annotations, shortlist titles and read alikes for the 2015 list, see the official announcement here. For a list of past winners and more information on the Reading List Council, visit the Reading List award page.

Sophie Brody Medal for excellence in Jewish Literature:

“A Replacement Life” by Boris Fishman (HarperCollins)

Honorable mentions include:
“The Mathematician’s Shiva” by Stuart Rojstaczer (Penguin)
“In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist” by Ruchama King Feuerman (New York Review of Books)

For a complete description of the 2015 award winner and honorable mentions, see the official announcement here. For a list of past winners and more information on the Sophie Brody Medal, visit the Sophie Brody Medal award page.

Listen List for outstanding audiobook narration:

“The Bees” by Laline Paull. Narrated by Orlagh Cassidy. Blackstone Audio/HarperAudio.

“Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the World That Made Him” by David Henry & Joe Henry. Narrated by Dion Graham. Tantor Media.

“The Home Place” by Carrie La Seur. Narrated by Andrus Nichols. Blackstone Audio/HarperAudio.

“The Invention of Wings” by Sue Monk Kidd. Narrated by Jenna Lamia and Adepero Oduye. Penguin Audio/Recorded Books.

“Lord of Scoundrels” by Loretta Chase. Narrated by Kate Reading. Blackstone Audio.

“The Martian” by Andy Weir. Narrated by R.C. Bray. Podium Publishing.

“Moonraker” by Ian Fleming. Narrated by Bill Nighy. Blackstone Audio.

“The Moonstone” by Wilkie Collins. Narrated by Ronald Pickup, Joe Marsh, Fenella Woolgar, Sam Dale, Jonathan Oliver, Jamie Parker, Sean Barrett, David Timson, John Foley and Benjamin Soames. Naxos AudioBooks.

“Queen of the Tearling,” by Erika Johansen. Narrated by Katherine Kellgren. Blackstone Audio.

“The Silkworm” by Robert Galbraith. Narrated by Robert Glenister. Blackstone Audio/Hachette Audio.

“Station Eleven” by Emily St. John Mandel. Narrated by Kirsten Potter. Books on Tape/Random House Audio.

“The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien. Narrated by Bryan Cranston. Brilliance Audio.

For a complete list of annotations and listen alikes for the 2015 winners, see the official announcement here. For a list of past winners and more information on the Listen List, visit the Listen List award page.

Dartmouth Medal for the most distinguished reference publication:

“Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism” published by Princeton University Press.

For a complete description of the award and 2015 winner, see the official announcement here. For a list of past winners and more information on the Dartmouth Medal award, visit the Dartmouth Medal award page.

Outstanding Reference Sources for excellence in reference:

“American Indians at Risk” Edited by Jeffrey Ian Ross (Greenwood)

“Black Stats: African Americans by the Numbers in the Twenty-First Century” by Monique W. Morris (The New Press)

“Bumblebees of North America” by Paul Williams, Robin Thorp, Leif Richardson and Shelia Colla (Princeton University Press)

“Consumer Healthcare” Edited by Brigham Narins (Gale Cengage Learning)

“Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon” Edited by Barbara Cassin. Translation edited by Emily Apter, Jaques Lezra, and Michael Wood (Princeton University Press)

“Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice” Edited by Jay S. Albanese (Wiley Blackwell)

“Encyclopedia of Deception” Edited by Timothy R. Levine (Sage Publishing)

“Encyclopedia of Humor Studies” Edited by Salvatore Attardo (Sage Publishing)

“Encyclopedia of the Wars of The Early American Republic, 1783-1812” Edited by Spencer C Tucker (ABC-CLIO)

“Muhammad in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia of the Prophet of God” Edited by Coeli Fitzpatrick and Adam Hani Walker (ABC-CLIO)

For more information about the award, see the official announcement here. For a complete list of past winners and more information on the award, visit the Outstanding Reference Sources award page.

Selected by judging committees of librarians and other readers’ advisory experts, the awards highlight outstanding works for adult readers and libraries nationwide. For more information on RUSA’s Book and Media Awards, please visit www.ala.org/rusa/awards.

February 1, 2015February 11, 2015

2015 Sophie Brody Medal for achievement in Jewish literature names winner, honorable mentions

CHICAGO–The Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) has announced its selection for the 2015 Sophie Brody Medal, an honor bestowed by the Collection Development and Evaluation Section (CODES) of RUSA at ALA’s Midwinter Meeting.

This Year’s winner is A Replacement Life by Boris Fishman, published by HarperCollins. This is a story about the immigrant experience and committing fraud for the right reasons: family, love, and Holocaust reparations.

The Sophie Brody Medal is funded by the Brodart Foundation and is given to encourage, recognize, and commend outstanding achievement in Jewish Literature. Works for adults published in the United States in the preceding year are eligible for the award.

Honorable mentions include The Mathematician’s Shiva by Stuart Rojstaczer, published by Penguin, and In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist by Ruchama King Feuerman, published by the New York Review of Books.

This year’s winner and honor books were selected by the Sophie Brody Medal Committee; Barbara Bibel, Oakland Public Library, chair; Donald Altschiller, Boston University; Emily A. Bergman, University of Southern California; Jack Forman, Mesa College; Kathleen Gallagher, University City Public Library; Elliot H. Gertel, University of Michigan; Edward Kownslar, Texas A&M; Mary M.D. Parker, MINITEX; Adela Peskorz, Metropolitan State University; Nonny Schlotzhauer, Pennsylvania State University; and Barry Trott, Williamsburg Regional Library.