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Anthony Doerr and Bryan Stevenson Awarded the 2015 Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction

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The eagerly anticipated announcements  of the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction took place on June 27, 2015 at the American Library Association’s annual conference in San Francisco. Anthony Doerr, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All The Light We Cannot See was awarded the Carnegie medal for fiction, and Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy, was awarded the Carnegie medal for nonfiction.

The Carnegie Medals are ALA’s only single-book award for adult trade fiction and nonfiction, cosponsored by Booklist and RUSA. For more information about the awards and selection committee, visit http://www.ala.org/rusa/awards/carnegie.

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Call for 2016 MW Institute, AC Program & Preconference Proposals

The Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) is now accepting institute, preconference and program proposals for the 2016 Midwinter Meeting in Boston and the 2016 ALA Annual Conference in Orlando.

Proposals will be accepted online through 11:59 p.m. Central on May 11, 2015. Faxed, e-mailed or mailed proposals will not be accepted.

Proposals must be submitted to the appropriate section for approval before being entered in the proposal system online (see instructions below for entering approved section proposals). For more information about how to submit a proposal to a RUSA section, please contact the section chair. Section chair contact information can be found in the Section Executive Committee rosters here.

Session topics should showcase emerging trends and examples of driving change in the areas of reference services including but not limited to: marketing library services, advocacy, special populations, collection development, evaluation, readers’ advisory, instruction, business reference, emerging technologies, interlibrary loan and resource sharing, genealogy and historical research and more!

The RUSA Conference Program Coordinating Committee will review, organize and recommend for final approval to the RUSA Board all submitted section-approved proposals and select sessions based on their relevance to the profession and general interest to conference attendees who work in reference services at the 2015 annual conference.

Instructions for approved section proposal submission: Once your proposal is approved by the section, it should be entered here. Once you’ve logged in, click on “Click here to begin a new Proposal.”  Note that there is an option to propose a tour; all tours must be proposed in this system.

Since this is our first year using it, we’d appreciate any constructive feedback from users about the new program proposal system set up by ALA.

For more information, contact the RUSA office at rusa@ala.org or (800) 545-2433, ext. 4395.

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BREAKING – ALA unveils shortlist for 2015 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction

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The American Library Association (ALA) today announced the six books shortlisted for the esteemed 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 U.S. As part of an announcement and medal presentation event at the 2015 ALA Annual Conference in San Francisco in June, each winning author will receive $5,000, and the four finalists will each receive $1,500.

Selected 2015 shortlisted titles are:

Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction Shortlist

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, by Bryan Stevenson. Published by Spiegel & Grau, an imprint of Random House.

Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Institute in Montgomery, Alabama, delivers a passionate account of the ways our nation thwarts justice and inhumanely punishes the poor and disadvantaged.

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, by Elizabeth Kolbert. Published by Henry Holt.

Kolbert combines travel adventures, lucid science, and informed and awestruck descriptions of natural wonders, from rainforests to the Great Barrier Reef, to forthrightly address the deleterious impact our use of fossil fuels is having on the very fabric of life.

Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David, by Lawrence Wright. Published by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House LLC.

Pulitzer-winning journalist Wright presents a riveting blow-by-blow analysis of the historic 1978 meeting between Egypt and Israel brokered by then-president Jimmy Carter. A moving testament to the art of diplomacy that almost invites optimism, even as prospects for peace in today’s Middle East dim.

Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction Shortlist

All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr. Published by Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Through the intertwined stories of a sightless French girl and a German soldier, Doerr masterfully and imaginatively re-creates the harsh conditions in WWII-torn France and the strictly controlled lives of the military occupiers.

Nora Webster, by Colm Tóibín. Published by Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

In Tóibín’s remarkably subtle, witty, and affirming story, the Ireland of four decades ago and the conundrums women faced are beautifully evoked through events in the three-year widowhood of fortysomething Nora Webster.

On Such a Full Sea, by Chang-rae Lee. Published by Riverhead Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA).

As young Fan searches for her missing boyfriend in an America devastated by climate change and a pandemic, Lee brilliantly imagines extreme survival tactics, psychological trauma, and the resurrection of art and its solace.

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. Brad Hooper, Adult Books Editor at Booklist and winner of the 2015 Louis Shores Award for excellence in reviewing, serves as chair of the 2015 awards selection committee.

The awards 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).

Annotations and more information on the finalists and the awards can be found at http://www.ala.org/carnegieadult.

About Carnegie Corporation of New York
Carnegie Corporation of New York was created by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding. In keeping with this mandate, the corporation’s work focuses on the issues that Andrew Carnegie considered of paramount importance: international peace, the advancement of education and knowledge, and the strength of our democracy.

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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.