The 35th annual Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were awarded on Saturday, April 18, 2015, in a public ceremony at USC’s Bovard Auditorium. The best books of 2014 were recognized in 10 categories, along with the winners of the Innovator’s and Robert Kirsch awards.

For more information, please visit www.latimesbookprizes.com.

2014 Winners

Robert Kirsch Award
TC Boyle

Innovator's Award
Levar Burton

Biography
NAPOLEON: A LIFE by Andrew Roberts (Viking)

Current Interest
THE SHORT AND TRAGIC LIFE OF ROBERT PEACE: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League, by Jeff Hobbs (Scribner)

Fiction
THE BLAZING WORLD by Siri Hustvedt (Simon & Schuster)

Graphic Novel/Comics
THE LOVE BUNGLERS by Jaime Hernandez (Fantagraphics)

History
THE DELUGE: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931 by Adam Tooze (Viking)

Mystery/Thriller
DRY BONES IN THE VALLEY by Tom Bouman (W. W. Norton & Company)

Poetry
CITIZEN: An American Lyric, by Claudia Rankine (Graywolf)

Science & Technology
THE SIXTH EXTINCTION: An Unnatural History, by Elizabeth Kolbert (Henry Holt and Co.)

Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction
FACES IN THE CROWD by Valeria Luiselli (Coffee House Press)

Young Adult Literature
THE FAMILY ROMANOV: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia by Candace Fleming (Schwartz & Wade/Random House Children's)

2014 Finalists

Robert Kirsch Award

• TC Boyle

Innovator's Award

• Levar Burton

Biography

• UPDIKE by Adam Begley (HarperCollins)
• EUGENE O'NEILL: A Life in Four Acts by Robert M. Dowling (Yale University Press)
• ISABELLA: The Warrior Queen, by Kirstin Downey (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday)
• STALIN: Volume 1 - PARADOXES OF POWER 1878-1928 by Stephen Kotkin (The Penguin Press)
• NAPOLEON: A LIFE by Andrew Roberts (Viking)

Current Interest

• BEING MORTAL: Medicine and What Matters in the End, by Atul Gawande (Metropolitan Books)
• THE SHORT AND TRAGIC LIFE OF ROBERT PEACE: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League, by Jeff Hobbs (Scribner)
• JUST MERCY: A Story of Justice and Redemption, by Bryan Stevenson (Spiegel & Grau)
• THE DIVIDE: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap, by Matt Taibbi (Spiegel & Grau)
• DEEP DOWN DARK: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free, by Héctor Tobar (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Fiction

• THE EMERALD LIGHT IN THE AIR: Stories, by Donald Antrim (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• SILENCE ONCE BEGUN by Jesse Ball (Pantheon)
• THE BLAZING WORLD by Siri Hustvedt (Simon & Schuster)
• DEPT. OF SPECULATION by Jenny Offill (Knopf)
• BOY, SNOW, BIRD by Helen Oyeyemi (Riverhead)

Graphic Novel/Comics

• CAN'T WE TALK ABOUT SOMETHING MORE PLEASANT: A Memoir, by Roz Chast (Bloomsbury)
• THE LOVE BUNGLERS by Jaime Hernandez (Fantagraphics)
• AN IRANIAN METAMORPHOSIS by Mana Neyestani (Uncivilized Books)
• ARSENE SCHRAUWEN by Olivier Schrauwen (Fantagraphics)
• THIS ONE SUMMER written by Mariko Tamaki, illustrated by Jillian Tamaki (First Second)

History

• THE VICTORIAN CITY: Everyday Life in Dickens' London, by Judith Flanders (Thomas Dunne Books)
• FIVE CAME BACK: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War, by Mark Harris (The Penguin Press)
• THE INNOVATORS: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution, by Walter Isaacson (Simon & Schuster)
• THE DELUGE: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931 by Adam Tooze (Viking)
• THIRTEEN DAYS IN SEPTEMBER: Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David, by Lawrence Wright (Knopf)

Mystery/Thriller

• DRY BONES IN THE VALLEY by Tom Bouman (W. W. Norton & Company)
• THE PAINTER by Peter Heller (Knopf)
• AFTER I'M GONE by Laura Lippman (William Morrow)
• SINS OF OUR FATHERS by Shawn Lawrence Otto (Milkweed Editions)
• THE GIRL WITH A CLOCK FOR A HEART by Peter Swanson (William Morrow)

Poetry

• PEACE by Gillian Conoley (Omnidawn)
• BLOOD LYRICS: Poems, by Katie Ford (Graywolf)
• IN DEFENSE OF NOTHING: Selected Poems, 1987-2011 by Peter Gizzi (Wesleyan University Press)
• THE FEEL TRIO by Fred Moten (Letter Machine Editions)
• CITIZEN: An American Lyric, by Claudia Rankine (Graywolf)

Science & Technology

• COSMIGRAPHICS: Picturing Space Through Time, by Michael Benson (Abrams)
• MISSING MICROBES: How the Overuse of Antibiotics is Fueling Our Modern Plagues, by Martin J. Blaser, MD (Henry Holt and Co.)
• THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING: Capitalism vs. the Climate, by Naomi Klein (Simon & Schuster)
• THE SIXTH EXTINCTION: An Unnatural History, by Elizabeth Kolbert (Henry Holt and Co.)
• DATACLYSM: Who We Are (When We Think No One's Looking), by Christian Rudder (Crown Publishers)

Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction

• MAN V. NATURE: Stories by Diane Cook (HarperCollins)
• WOLF IN WHITE VAN by John Darnielle (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• FACES IN THE CROWD by Valeria Luiselli (Coffee House Press)
• A GIRL IS A HALF-FORMED THING by Eimear McBride (Coffee House Press)
• THE HEAVEN OF ANIMALS: Stories by David James Poissant (Simon & Schuster)

Young Adult Literature

• EYES WIDE OPEN: Going Behind the Environmental Headlines by Paul Fleischman (Candlewick)
• THE FAMILY ROMANOV: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia by Candace Fleming (Schwartz & Wade/Random House Children's)
• THE STORY OF OWEN: Dragon Slayer of Trondheim by E.K. Johnston (Carolrhoda Lab/Lerner Publishing)
• GRASSHOPPER JUNGLE by Andrew Smith (Dutton Children's Books)
• BROWN GIRL DREAMING by Jacqueline Woodson (Nancy Paulsen Books)