LA Times Book Prize

One of the country's most important prizes for books is the L.A. Times Book Prize. This year's nominees have just been announced. See: here. The winner will be announced on April 25. Listed below are the nominees in fiction only (go to the story for other genres), and I'm happy to see included Per Petterson's Out Stealing Horses. I'm also thrilled to note that the list for the "First Fiction" award includes The Understory by Pamela Erens, a book that I loved and reviewed in Rain Taxi. Congratulations, Pamela!

Fiction

Junot Díaz "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" (Riverhead Books)

Andrew O'Hagan "Be Near Me" (Harcourt)

Stewart O'Nan "Last Night at the Lobster" (Viking)

Per Petterson "Out Stealing Horses: A Novel" (Graywolf Press)

Marianne Wiggins "The Shadow Catcher: A Novel" (Simon & Schuster)


Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction

Antonia Arslan (Translated by Geoffrey Brock)"Skylark Farm" (Alfred A. Knopf)

Rebecca Curtis "Twenty Grand: And Other Tales of Love and Money" (Harper Perennial)

Pamela Erens "The Understory" (Ironweed Press)

Ellen Litman "The Last Chicken in America: A Novel in Stories" (W.W. Norton)

Dinaw Mengestu "The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears" (Riverhead Books)