Los Angeles Times Book Prizes



Since 1980, the Los Angeles Times has awarded a set of annual book prizes. The Prizes "currently have nine single-title categories: biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction (the Art Seidenbaum Award added in 1991), history, mystery/thriller (category added in 2000), poetry, science and technology (category added in 1989), and young adult fiction (category added in 1998). In addition, the Robert Kirsch Award is presented annually to a living author with a substantial connection to the American West, whose contribution to American letters deserves special recognition." .

The Book Prize program was founded by the late Art Seidenbaum, a Los Angeles Times book editor from 1978 to 1985; an award named after him was added a year after his death in 1990. The Robert Kirsch Award is named after the longtime Times book critic who died in 1980. Works are eligible during the year of their first US publication in English, though English does not have to be the original language of the work. The author of each winning book and the Kirsch Award recipient receives a citation and $1,000. The prizes are presented the day before the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.

Biography

 * 2010: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand (Random House)
 * 2009: Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits by Linda Gordon (W.W. Norton & Co.)
 * 2008: Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching by Paula J. Giddings (Amistad/HarperCollins)
 * 2007: Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore (Knopf)
 * 2006: Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler (Alfred A. Knopf)
 * 2005:     Matisse the Master: A Life of Henri Matisse, the Conquest of Colour, 1909-1954 by Hilary Spurling, (Knopf)
 * 2004:   de Kooning: An American Master by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan (Knopf)
 * 2003:   American Empire: Roosevelt’s Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization by Neil Smith (University of California Press)
 * 2002:      Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. 3 by Robert A. Caro (Knopf)
 * 2001:      Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris (Random House)
 * 2000:      Jefferson Davis, American by William J. Cooper, Jr. (Knopf)
 * 1999:      Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman (Knopf)
 * 1998:      Lindbergh by A. Scott Berg (Putnam's)
 * 1997:      Whittaker Chambers: A Biography by Sam Tanenhaus (Random House)
 * 1996:      Angela's Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt (Scribner)
 * 1995:      Under My Skin: Volume One of My Autobiography, to 1949 by Doris Lessing (HarperCollins)
 * 1994:      Shot in the Heart by Mikal Gilmore (Doubleday)
 * 1993;      Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer by John Mack Faragher (Henry Holt)
 * 1992:      Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume One 1884-1993 by Blanche Wiesen Cook (Viking)
 * 1991:      Righteous Pilgrim: The Life and Times of Harold L. Ickes, 1874-1952 by T.H. Watkins (Henry Holt)
 * 1990:      A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt by Geoffrey C. Ward (Harper & Row)
 * 1989:      This Boy's Life: A Memoir by Tobias Wolff (Atlantic Monthly Press)
 * 1988:      Nora: The Real Life of Molly Bloom by Brenda Maddox (Houghton Mifflin)
 * 1987:      Hemingway by Kenneth S. Lynn (Simon & Schuster)
 * 1986:      Alexander Pope: A Life by Maynard Mack (W.W. Norton)
 * 1985:      Solzhenitsyn by Michael Scammell (W.W. Norton)
 * 1984:      The Nightmare of Reason by Ernst Pawel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
 * 1983:      The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House by Seymour Hersh (Summit Books)
 * 1982:      Waldo Emerson: A Biography by Gay Wilson Allen (Viking)
 * 1981:      Mornings on Horseback by David McCullough (Simon & Schuster)
 * 1980:      (Biography award concurrent with this year's History award)

Current interest

 * 2010: The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis (W. W. Norton & Company)
 * 2009: Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (McSweeney’s Books)
 * 2008: Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency by Barton Gellman (The Penguin Press)
 * 2007: Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point by Elizabeth D. Samet (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
 * 2006: Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance by Ian Buruma (Penguin Press)
 * 2005:    Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War, by Anthony Shadid (Henry Holt)
 * 2004:    Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America and the New Face of American War by Evan Wright (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
 * 2003:    The New Chinese Empire -- And What It Means for the United States by Ross Terrill (Basic Books)
 * 2002:      Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex by Judith Levine (University of Minnesota Press)
 * 2001:      Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich (Metropolitan Books, an imprint of Henry Holt and Company)
 * 2000:      Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War by Frances FitzGerald (Simon & Schuster)
 * 1999:     Sidewalk (with Photographs by Ovie Carter) by Mitchell Duneier (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
 * 1998:      We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
 * 1997:      The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
 * 1996:      Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War by Peter Maass (Alfred A. Knopf)
 * 1995:      Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy Who Discovered He Was Black by Gregory Howard Williams (Dutton)
 * 1994:      Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger (Simon & Schuster)
 * 1993:      Mexican Americans: The Ambivalent Minority by Peter Skerry (The Free Press)
 * 1992:      The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama (The Free Press)
 * 1991:      Why Americans Hate Politics: The Death of the Democratic Process by E.J. Dionne, Jr. (Simon & Schuster)
 * 1990:      Disappearing through the Skylight: Culture and Technology in the Twentieth Century by O.B. Hardison, Jr. (Viking)
 * 1989:      Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-1963 by Taylor Branch (Simon & Schuster)
 * 1988:      Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country by William Greider (Simon & Schuster)
 * 1987:      The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins (W.W. Norton)
 * 1986:      Move Your Shadow: South Africa, Black and White by Joseph Lelyveld (Times Books)
 * 1985:      Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life by Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler and Steven M. Tipton (University of California Press)
 * 1984:      Cities and the Wealth of Nations by Jane Jacobs (Random House)
 * 1983:      Lost in the Cosmos by Walker Percy (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
 * 1982:      The Fate of the Earth by Jonathan Schell (Alfred A. Knopf)
 * 1981:      Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number by Jacobo Timerman (Alfred A. Knopf)
 * 1980:      Without Fear or Favor by Harrison Salisbury (New York Times Books) [Winner of the General Award—no Current Interest Award this year]

Fiction

 * 2010: A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (Knopf)
 * 2009: A Happy Marriage, by Rafael Yglesias (Scribner)
 * 2008: Home by Marilynne Robinson (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux)
 * 2007: Be Near Me by Andrew O'Hagan (Harcourt)
 * 2006: A Woman in Jerusalem [translated from the Hebrew by Hillel Halkin] by A. B. Yehoshua (Harcourt)
 * 2005:     Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel García Márquez, translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman (Alfred A. Knopf)
 * 2004:     The Master by Colm Tóibín (Scribner)
 * 2003:     Train: A Novel by Pete Dexter (Doubleday)
 * 2002:      Atonement: A Novel by Ian McEwan (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday)
 * 2001:      Why Did I Ever by Mary Robison (Counterpoint)
 * 2000:      Assorted Fire Events: Stories by David Means (Context Books)
 * 1999:      Freedom Song: Three Novels by Amit Chaudhuri (Alfred A. Knopf)
 * 1998:      The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald [Translated from the German by Michael Hulse] (New Directions)
 * 1997:      In the Rogue Blood by James Carlos Blake (Avon Books)
 * 1996:      A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry (Alfred A. Knopf)
 * 1995:      The Blue Afternoon by William Boyd (Alfred A. Knopf)
 * 1994:      Remembering Babylon by David Malouf (Pantheon Books)
 * 1993:      Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver (HarperCollins)
 * 1992:      Maus II, A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman (Pantheon Books)
 * 1991:      White People by Allan Gurganus (Alfred A. Knopf)
 * 1990:      Lantern Slides by Edna O'Brien (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
 * 1989:      The Heart of the Country by Fay Weldon (Viking)
 * 1988:      Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Marquez (Alfred A. Knopf)
 * 1987:      Fools Crow by James Welch (Viking)
 * 1986:      The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (Houghton Mifflin)
 * 1985:      Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich (Holt, Rinehart and Winston)
 * 1984:      The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (Harper & Row)
 * 1983:      Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally (Simon & Schuster)
 * 1982:      A Flag for Sunrise by Robert Stone (Alfred A. Knopf)
 * 1981:      The White Hotel by D.M. Thomas(Viking)
 * 1980:      The Second Coming by Walker Percy (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

History

 * 2010: The Killing of Crazy Horse by Thomas Powers (Knopf)
 * 2009: Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance 1950–1963 by Kevin Starr (Oxford University Press)
 * 2008: Hitler’s Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe by Mark Mazower (The Penguin Press)
 * 2007: Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner (Doubleday)
 * 2006: The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright (Alfred A. Knopf)
 * 2005:     Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves by Adam Hochschild (Houghton Mifflin)
 * 2004:      Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism by Geoffrey R. Stone (W.W. Norton & Company)
 * 2003:      An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America by Henry Wiencek (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
 * 2002:      Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Michael B. Oren (Oxford University Press)
 * 2001:      Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus by Rick Perlstein (Hill and Wang Division, Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
 * 2000:      The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach by Alice Kaplan (University of Chicago Press)
 * 1999:      Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II by John W. Dower (W.W. Norton)
 * 1998:      The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity by Roy Porter (W.W. Norton)
 * 1997:      A People's Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution by Orlando Figes (Viking)
 * 1996:      Black Sea by Neal Ascherson (Hill & Wang)
 * 1995:      Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America by Jackson Lears (Basic Books)
 * 1994:      Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 by George Chauncey (Basic Books)
 * 1993:      New Worlds, Ancient Texts: The Power of Tradition and the Shock of Discovery by Anthony Grafton (Harvard University Press)
 * 1992:      Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families under Fascism by Alexander Stille (Summit)
 * 1991:      The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America by Nicholas Lemann (Alfred A. Knopf)
 * 1990:      The Quest for El Cid by Richard Fletcher (Alfred A. Knopf)
 * 1989:      An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood by Neal Gabler (Crown Books)
 * 1988:      Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 by Eric Foner (Harper & Row)
 * 1987:      [No award in 1987]
 * 1986:      The First Socialist Society: A History of the Soviet Union from Within by Geoffrey Hosking (Harvard University Press)
 * 1985:      Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Bighorn by Evan S. Connell (North Point Press)
 * 1984:      The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History by Robert Darnton (Basic Books)
 * 1983:      The Wheels of Commerce by Fernand Braudel (Harper & Row)
 * 1982:      The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution, 1895-1980 by Jonathan D. Spence (Viking)
 * 1981:      Land of Savagery/Land of Promise by Ray Allen Billington (W.W. Norton)
 * 1980:      Walter Lippmann and the American Century by Ronald Steel (Atlantic/ Little Brown)

Mystery/thriller

 * 2010: Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin (William Morrow)
 * 2009: The Ghosts of Belfast, by Stuart Neville (SOHO Press)
 * 2008: Envy the Night by Michael Koryta (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Minotaur)
 * 2007: The Indian Bride by Karin Fossum, translated by Charlotte Barslund (Harcourt)
 * 2006: Echo Park by Michael Connelly
 * 2005: Legends by Robert Little (Overlook Press)
 * 2004: Tijuana Straits by Kem Nunn (Scribner)
 * 2003: Soul Circus by George P. Pelecanos (Little, Brown)
 * 2002: Hell to Pay by George P. Pelecanos (Little, Brown and Company)
 * 2001: Silent Joe by T. Jefferson Parker (Hyperion)
 * 2000: A Place of Execution by Val McDermid (St. Martin's Press/Minotaur)
 * 1999: [Award added in 2000]

Science and technology

 * 2010: The Price of Altruism: George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness by Oren Harman (W. W. Norton & Company)
 * 2009: The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom by Graham Farmelo (Basic Books/Perseus Book Group)
 * 2008: The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics by Leonard Susskind (Little Brown and Co.)
 * 2007: I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter (Basic Books)
 * 2006: In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind by Eric R. Kandel (W.W. Norton)
 * 2005:     Before the Fallout: From Marie Curie to Hiroshima by Diana Preston (Walker & Company)
 * 2004:      The Whale and the Supercomputer: On the Northern Front of Climate Change by Charles Wohlforth (North Point Press / Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
 * 2003:      Protecting America’s Health: The FDA, Business, and One Hundred Years of Regulation by Philip J. Hilts (Alfred A. Knopf)
 * 2002:      Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA by Brenda Maddox (HarperCollins Publishers)
 * 2001:      The Invention of Clouds: How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies by Richard Hamblyn (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
 * 2000:      The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine by James Le Fanu, M.D. (Carroll & Graf)
 * 1999:      Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love by Dava Sobel (Walker and Company)
 * 1998:      Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce by Douglas Starr (Alfred A. Knopf)
 * 1997:      How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker (W.W. Norton)
 * 1996:      The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan (Random House)
 * 1995:      Naturalist by Edward O. Wilson (Island Press)
 * 1994:      The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time by Jonathan Weiner (Alfred A. Knopf)
 * 1993:      Fuzzy Logic: The Discovery of a Revolutionary Computer Technology -- and How It Is Changing Our World by Daniel McNeill and Paul Freiberger (Simon & Schuster)
 * 1992:      The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal by Jared Diamond (HarperCollins)
 * 1991:      The Truth about Chernobyl by Grigori Medvedev(Basic Books)
 * 1990:      Patenting the Sun: Polio and the Salk Vaccine by Jane S. Smith (William Morrow)
 * 1989:      Peacemaking among Primates by Frans de Waal (Harvard University Press)
 * 1988:      [Award added in 1989]

Poetry

 * 2010: Where I Live: New & Selected Poems 1990-2010 by Maxine Kumin (W. W. Norton & Company)
 * 2009: Practical Water by Brenda Hillman (Wesleyan University Press)
 * 2008: Watching the Spring Festival: Poems by Frank Bidart (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
 * 2007: Old Heart: Poems by Stanley Plumly (W. W. Norton)
 * 2006: Ooga-Booga by Frederick Seidel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
 * 2005:      Refusing Heaven: Poems by Jack Gilbert (Alfred A. Knopf)
 * 2004:      Inner Voices: Selected Poems, 1963-2003 by Richard Howard (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
 * 2003:      Collected Later Poems by Anthony Hecht (Alfred A. Knopf)
 * 2002:      The Watercourse: Poems by Cynthia Zarin (Alfred A. Knopf)
 * 2001:      The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos by Anne Carson (Alfred A. Knopf)
 * 2000:      The Throne of Labdacus by Gjertrud Schnackenberg (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
 * 1999:      Repair: Poems by C.K. Williams (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
 * 1998:      Mysteries of Small Houses by Alice Notley (Penguin Books)
 * 1997:      Black Zodiac by Charles Wright (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
 * 1996:      Mixed Company by Alan Shapiro (The University of Chicago Press)
 * 1995:      The Inferno of Dante by Robert Pinsky (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
 * 1994:      The Angel of History by Carolyn Forché (HarperCollins)
 * 1993:      My Alexandria by Mark Doty (University of Illinois Press)
 * 1992:      An Atlas of the Difficult World: Poems 1988-1991 by Adrienne Rich (W.W. Norton)
 * 1991:      What Work Is by Philip Levine (Alfred A. Knopf)
 * 1990:      The Color of Mesabi Bones by John Caddy (Milkweed)
 * 1989:      The One Day: A Poem in Three Parts by Donald Hall (Ticknor & Fields/ Houghton Mifflin)
 * 1988:      New and Collected Poems by Richard Wilbur (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich)
 * 1987:      Partial Accounts: New and Selected Poems by William Meredith (Alfred A. Knopf)
 * 1986:      Collected Poems, 1948-1984 by Derek Walcott (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
 * 1985:      Cross Ties by X.J. Kennedy (University of Georgia Press)
 * 1984:      The Maximus Poems by Charles Olson (University of California Press)
 * 1983:      The Changing Light at Sandover by James Merrill (Atheneum)
 * 1982:      Plutonian Ode and Other Poems, 1977-1980 by Allen Ginsberg (City Lights)
 * 1981:      Three Pieces by Ntozake Shange (St. Martin's Press)
 * 1980:      Kill the Messenger by Robert Kelly (Black Sparrow)

Young adult fiction

 * 2010: A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner (Greenwillow/HarperCollins)
 * 2009: Marching for Freedom: Walk Together Children and Don’t You Grow Weary by Elizabeth Partridge (Viking Children’s Books/Penguin Group)
 * 2008: Nation by Terry Pratchett (HarperCollins)
 * 2007: A Darkling Plain by Philip Reeve (Scholastic)
 * 2006: Tyrell by Coe Booth (Push / Scholastic)
 * 2005: You & You & You by Per Nilsson, translated from the Swedish by Tara Chace (Front Street/Boyds Mills Press)
 * 2004: Doing It by Melvin Burgess (Henry Holt Books for Young Readers)
 * 2003: A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly (Harcourt Children’s Books)
 * 2002: Feed by M.T. Anderson (Candlewick Press)
 * 2001: The Land by Mildred D. Taylor (Phyllis Fogelman Books, Penguin Putnam)
 * 2000: Miracle's Boys by Jacqueline Woodson (G.P. Putnam's Sons, Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers)
 * 1999: Frenchtown Summer by Robert Cormier (Delacorte Press)
 * 1998: Rules of the Road by Joan Bauer (G.P. Putnam's Sons)
 * 1997: [Award added in 1998]

The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction

 * 2010: The House of Tomorrow by Peter Bognanni (Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam)
 * 2009: American Rust, by Philipp Meyer (Spiegel & Grau)
 * 2008: Finding Nouf by Zoë Ferraris (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
 * 2007: The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu (Riverhead)
 * 2006: White Ghost Girls by Alice Greenway (Black Cat / Grove/Atlantic)
 * 2005: Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala (HarperCollins)
 * 2004: Harbor by Lorraine Adams (Alfred A. Knopf)
 * 2003: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (Doubleday)
 * 2002: Prague by Arthur Phillips (Random House)
 * 2001: The Dark Room by Rachel Seiffert (Pantheon Books)
 * 2000: The Romantics by Pankaj Mishra (Random House)
 * 1999: Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout (Random House)
 * 1998: Kalimantaan by C. S. Godshalk (Henry Holt)
 * 1997: Don't Erase Me: Stories by Carolyn Ferrell (Houghton Mifflin)
 * 1996: The Smell of Apples by Mark Behr (St. Martin's)
 * 1995: American Studies by Mark Merlis (Houghton Mifflin)
 * 1994: The Year of the Frog by Martin M. Šimecka (Louisiana State University Press)
 * 1993: Love  by Paul Kafka (Houghton Mifflin)
 * 1992: High Cotton by Darryl Pinckney (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
 * 1991: Pangs of Love by David Wong Louie (Alfred A. Knopf)
 * 1990: (Award added in 1991)

Graphic Novel

 * 2010: Duncan the Wonder Dog: Show One by Adam Hines (Adhouse Books)
 * 2009: Asterios Polyp, David Mazzucchelli (Pantheon)

The Robert Kirsch Award

 * 2010  Beverly Cleary
 * 2009  Evan S. Connell
 * 2008  Robert Alter
 * 2007 	Maxine Hong Kingston
 * 2006 	William Kittredge
 * 2005 	Joan Didion
 * 2004 	Tony Hillerman
 * 2003 	Ishmael Reed
 * 2002 	Larry McMurtry
 * 2001 	Tillie Olsen
 * 2000 	Lawrence Ferlinghetti
 * 1999 	Ursula K. Le Guin
 * 1998 	John Sanford
 * 1997 	Ray Bradbury
 * 1996 	Gary Snyder
 * 1995 	Stephen J. Pyne
 * 1994 	Brian Moore
 * 1993 	Carolyn See
 * 1992 	Diane Johnson
 * 1991 	Ken Kesey
 * 1990 	Czeslaw Milosz
 * 1989 	Karl Shapiro
 * 1988 	Thom Gunn
 * 1987 	Paul Horgan
 * 1986 	Kay Boyle
 * 1985 	Janet Lewis
 * 1984 	Christopher Isherwood
 * 1983 	M.F.K. Fisher
 * 1982 	Ross Macdonald
 * 1981 	Wright Morris
 * 1980 	Wallace Stegner

Innovator’s Award

 * 2010 Powell's Books
 * 2009 Dave Eggers