The LA Times announced the 2009 book prize finalists today. The winner will be announced at the awards ceremony on April 23.
2009 LA Times Book Prize Finalists
Biography
"The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR's Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience" by Kirstin Downey
"Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits" by Linda Gordon
"Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth-Century Skeptic" by Michael Scammell
"Louis D. Brandeis: A Life" by Melvin Urofsky
"The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst" by Kenneth Whyte
Current Interest
"Columbine" by Dave Cullen
"Zeitoun" by Dave Eggers
"Strength in What Remains" by Tracy Kidder
"Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide" by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sharon WuDunn
"The Healing of America: The Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Healthcare" by T.R. Reid
Fiction
"Heroic Measures" by Jill Ciment
"The Man in the Wooden Hat" by Jane Gardam
"Blame" by Michelle Huneven
"A Short History of Women" by Kate Walbert
"A Happy Marriage" by Rafael Yglesias
Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction
"An Elegy for Easterly" by Petina Gappah
"Tinkers" by Paul Harding
"American Rust" by Philipp Meyer
"In Other Rooms, Other Wonders" by Daniyal Mueenuddin
"Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned" by Wells Tower
Graphic Novel
"Luba" by Gilbert Hernandez
"GoGo Monster" by Taiyo Matsumoto
"Asterios Polyp" by David Mazzuchelli
"Scott Pilgrim Vol. 5: Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe" by Bryan Lee O'Malley
"Footnotes in Gaza" by Joe Sacco
History
"Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science" by Richard Holmes
"Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line" by Martha
A. Sandweiss
"Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance 1950-1963" by Kevin Starr
"Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890-1940" by Amy Louise Wood
"Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic 1789-1815" by Gordon S. Wood
Mystery/Thriller
"Bury Me Deep" by Megan Abbott
"The Hidden Man" by David Ellis
"Black Water Rising" by Attica Locke
"A Darker Domain" by Val McDermid
"The Ghosts of Belfast" by Stuart Neville
Poetry
"Apocalyptic Swing" by Gabrielle Calvocoressi
"Dearest Creature" by Amy Gerstler
"What the Right Hand Knows" by Tom Healy
"Practical Water" by Brenda Hillman
"]Open Interval[" by Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon
Science and Technology
"The Day We Found the Universe" by Marcia Bartusiak
"The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom" by Graham Farmelo
"Cold: Adventures in the World's Frozen Places" by Bill Streever
"Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human" by Richard Wrangham
"Naming Nature: The Clash Between Instinct and Science" by Carol Kaesuk Yoon
Young Adult Literature
"The Rise and Fall of Senator Joe McCarthy" by James Cross Giblin
"The Lost Conspiracy" by Frances Hardinge
"Charles and Emma: The Darwin's Leap of Faith" by Deborah Heiligman
"Marching for Freedom: Walk Together Children and Don't You Grow Weary" by Elizabeth Partridge
"Tales from Outer Suburbia" by Shaun Tan