The 40th annual Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were awarded on April 17th. The best books of 2019 were recognized in 12 categories, including the new Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction, along with the winners of the Robert Kirsch and Innovator’s awards.

For more information, please click here.
 

2019 Winners

Robert Kirsch Award
Walter Mosley

Innovator's Award
Keren Taylor, founder of WriteGirl

The Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose
BLACK IS THE BODY: Stories from My Grandmother's Time, My Mother's Time, and Mine, by Emily Bernard (Knopf)

Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction
THE OLD DRIFT by Namwali Serpell (Hogarth)

Biography
OUR MAN: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century, by George Packer (Knopf)

Current Interest
CHARGED: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration, by Emily Bazelon (Random House)

Fiction
THE TOPEKA SCHOOL by Ben Lerner (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Graphic Novel/Comics
THE HARD TOMORROW by Eleanor Davis (Drawn and Quarterly)

History
THEY WERE HER PROPERTY: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South, by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers (Yale University Press)

Mystery/Thriller
YOUR HOUSE WILL PAY by Steph Cha (Ecco)

Poetry
DEAF REPUBLIC: Poems, by Ilya Kaminsky (Graywolf Press)

Science & Technology
FIGURING by Maria Popova (Pantheon)

The Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction
BLACK LEOPARD, RED WOLF by Marlon James (Riverhead Books)

Young Adult Literature
WHEN THE GROUND IS HARD by Malla Nunn (G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers)
 

2019 Finalists

Robert Kirsch Award

• Walter Mosley

Innovator's Award

• Keren Taylor, founder of WriteGirl

The Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose

• BLACK IS THE BODY: Stories from My Grandmother's Time, My Mother's Time, and Mine, by Emily Bernard (Knopf)

Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction

• OPTIC NERVE written by Mari­a Gainza, translated by Thomas Bunstead (Catapult)
• SAY SAY SAY by Lila Savage (Knopf)
• THE OLD DRIFT by Namwali Serpell (Hogarth)
• MARILOU IS EVERYWHERE by Sarah Elaine Smith (Riverhead Books)
• IN WEST MILLS by De'Shawn Charles Winslow (Bloomsbury Publishing)

Biography

• THE CLUB: Johnson, Boswell and the Friends Who Shaped an Age, by Leo Damrosch (Yale University Press)
• OUR MAN: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century, by George Packer (Knopf)
• FAY WRAY AND ROBERT RISKIN: A Hollywood Memoir, by Victoria Riskin (Pantheon)
• ZORA AND LANGSTON: A Story of Friendship and Betrayal, by Yuval Taylor (W. W. Norton & Company)
• FIRST: Sandra Day O'Connor, by Evan Thomas (Random House)

Current Interest

• THE DREAMT LAND: Chasing Water and Dust Across California, by Mark Arax (Knopf)
• CHARGED: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration, by Emily Bazelon (Random House)
• CATCH AND KILL: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators, by Ronan Farrow (Little, Brown and Company)
• THE UNGRATEFUL REFUGEE: What Immigrants Never Tell You, by Dina Nayeri (Catapult)
• NO VISIBLE BRUISES: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us, by Rachel Louise Snyder (Bloomsbury Publishing)

Fiction

• WE, THE SURVIVORS by Tash Aw (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• STAY AND FIGHT by Madeline ffitch (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• THE TOPEKA SCHOOL by Ben Lerner (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• THE SHADOW KING by Maaza Mengiste (W. W. Norton & Company)
• THE NICKEL BOYS by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)

Graphic Novel/Comics

• THE HARD TOMORROW by Eleanor Davis (Drawn and Quarterly)
• LEAVING RICHARD'S VALLEY by Michael DeForge (Drawn and Quarterly)
• IS THIS HOW YOU SEE ME by Jaime Hernandez (Fantagraphics)
• GRASS by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim (Drawn and Quarterly)
• LAURA DEAN KEEPS BREAKING UP WITH ME (First Second)

History

• A FISTFUL OF SHELLS: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution, by Toby Green (University of Chicago Press)
• THEY WERE HER PROPERTY: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South, by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers (Yale University Press)
• GODS OF THE UPPER AIR: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century, by Charles King (Doubleday)
• THE CIGARETTE: A Political History, by Sarah Milov (Harvard University Press)
• THE HEARTBEAT OF WOUNDED KNEE: Native America from 1890 to the Present, by David Treuer (Riverhead Books)

Mystery/Thriller

• YOUR HOUSE WILL PAY by Steph Cha (Ecco)
• THE NIGHT FIRE: A Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch Novel, by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown and Company)
• THE LOST MAN by Jane Harper (Flatiron Books)
• LADY IN THE LAKE by Laura Lippman (William Morrow)
• HEAVEN, MY HOME: A Highway 59 Novel, by Attica Locke (Mulholland Books)

Poetry

• FELON: Poems, by Reginald Dwayne Betts (W. W. Norton & Company)
• DEAF REPUBLIC: Poems, by Ilya Kaminsky (Graywolf Press)
• OCULUS: Poems, by Sally Wen Mao (Graywolf Press)
• DUNCE by Mary Ruefle (Wave Books)
• BE RECORDER: Poems, by Carmen Giménez Smith (Graywolf Press)

Science & Technology

• BOTTLE OF LIES: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom, by Katherine Eban (Ecco)
• MIDNIGHT IN CHERNOBYL: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster, by Adam Higginbotham (Simon & Schuster)
• INVISIBLE WOMEN: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, by Caroline Criado Perez (Harry N. Abrams)
• FIGURING by Maria Popova (Pantheon)
• SUPERIOR: The Return of Race Science, by Angela Saini (Beacon Press)

The Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction

• EXHALATION: Stories, by Ted Chiang (Knopf)
• THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE THE TIME WAR by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (Gallery/Saga Press)
• SONG FOR THE UNRAVELING OF THE WORLD by Brian Evenson (Coffee House Press)
• BLACK LEOPARD, RED WOLF by Marlon James (Riverhead Books)
• THE OLD DRIFT by Namwali Serpell (Hogarth)

Young Adult Literature

• SHOUT by Laurie Halse Anderson (Viking Children's Books)
• DIG. by A.S. King (Dutton Books for Young Readers)
• BUTTERFLY YELLOW by Thanhha Lai (HarperCollins Books for Young Readers)
• WHEN THE GROUND IS HARD by Malla Nunn (G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers)
• PATRON SAINTS OF NOTHING by Randy Ribay (Kokila/Penguin Young Readers)