The 37th annual Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were awarded on Friday, April 21, 2017 in a public ceremony at USC’s Bovard Auditorium. The best books of 2016 were recognized in 11 categories, along with the winners of the Innovator’s and Robert Kirsch awards.

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

2016 Winners

Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction
THE NIX by Nathan Hill (Alfred A. Knopf)

Biography
HITLER: Ascent, 1889-1939 by Volker Ullrich (Alfred A. Knopf)

The Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose
THEY CAN'T KILL US ALL: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America's Racial Justice Movement by Wesley Lowery (Little, Brown and Company)

Current Interest
SECONDHAND TIME: The Last of the Soviets written by Svetlana Alexievich, translated by Bela Shayevich (Random House)

Fiction
IMAGINE ME GONE by Adam Haslett (Little, Brown and Company)

Graphic Novel/Comics
BEVERLY by Nick Drnaso (Drawn & Quarterly)

History
AN AMERICAN GENOCIDE: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873 by Benjamin Madley (Yale University Press)

Mystery/Thriller
DODGERS by Bill Beverly (Crown)

Poetry
GAP GARDENING: Selected Poems by Rosmarie Waldrop (New Directions)

Science & Technology
PATIENT H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets by Luke Dittrich (Random House)

Young Adult Literature
THE LIE TREE by Frances Hardinge (Harry N. Abrams)

Innovator's Award
Ruebén Martinez

Robert Kirsch Award
Thomas McGuane

2016 Finalists

Innovator's Award

• Ruebén Martinez

Robert Kirsch Award

• Thomas McGuane
   

Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction

• SPILL SIMMER FALTER WITHER by Sara Baume (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• THE WHALE: A Love Story by Mark Beauregard (Viking)
• THE NIX by Nathan Hill (Alfred A. Knopf)
• WAYS TO DISAPPEAR by Idra Novey (Little, Brown and Company)
• THE BED MOVED by Rebecca Schiff (Alfred A. Knopf)

Biography

• CHARLOTTE BRONTE: A Fiery Heart by Claire Harman (Alfred A. Knopf)
• MAD ENCHANTMENT: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies by Ross King (Bloomsbury USA)
• KILL 'EM AND LEAVE: Searching for the Real James Brown by James McBride (Spiegel & Grau)
• HITLER: Ascent, 1889-1939 by Volker Ullrich (Alfred A. Knopf)
• GUILTY THING: A Life of Thomas De Quincey by Frances Wilson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

The Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose

• THE FACE: Strangers on a Pier by Tash Aw (Restless Books)
• THEY CAN'T KILL US ALL: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America's Racial Justice Movement by Wesley Lowery (Little, Brown and Company)
• THE RETURN: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between by Hisham Matar (Random House)
• COCKROACHES written by Scholastique Mukasonga, translated by Jordan Stump (Archipelago Books)
• ANOTHER BROOKLYN by Jacqueline Woodson (Amistad/HarperCollins)

Current Interest

• SECONDHAND TIME: The Last of the Soviets written by Svetlana Alexievich, translated by Bela Shayevich (Random House)
• EVICTED: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond (Crown)
• DARK MONEY: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer (Doubleday)
• CITY OF THORNS: Nine Lives in the World's Largest Refugee Camp by Ben Rawlence (Picador)
• A RAGE FOR ORDER: The Middle East in Turmoil, from Tahrir Square to ISIS by Robert F. Worth (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Fiction

• WHAT BELONGS TO YOU by Garth Greenwell (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• IMAGINE ME GONE by Adam Haslett (Little, Brown and Company)
• SWEET LAMB OF HEAVEN by Lydia Millet (W. W. Norton and Company)
• SWING TIME by Zadie Smith (Penguin Press)
• INNOCENTS AND OTHERS by Dana Spiotta (Scribner)

Graphic Novel/Comics

• BEVERLY by Nick Drnaso (Drawn & Quarterly)
• THE ARTIST by Anna Haifisch (Breakdown Press LTD)
• DON'T COME IN HERE by Patrick Kyle (Koyama Press)
• WHAT IS OBSCENITY: The Story of a Good for Nothing Artist and Her Pussy by Rokudenashiko (Koyama Press)
• DEMON: Volume 1 by Jason Shiga (First Second/Macmillan)

History

• WHERE THE JEWS AREN'T: The Sad and Absurd Story of Birobidzhan, Russia's Jewish Autonomous Region by Masha Gessen (Schocken Books)
• SPAIN IN OUR HEARTS: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939 by Adam Hochschild (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• WHITE TRASH: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg (Viking)
• AN AMERICAN GENOCIDE: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873 by Benjamin Madley (Yale University Press)
• BLOOD IN THE WATER: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson (Pantheon)

Mystery/Thriller

• DODGERS by Bill Beverly (Crown)
• HIS BLOODY PROJECT: Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae by Graeme Macrae Burnet (Skyhorse Publishing)
• THE GIRLS by Emma Cline (Random House)
• THE NORTH WATER by Ian McGuire (Henry Holt and Co.)
• DARKTOWN by Thomas Mullen (37 Ink/Atria Books)

Poetry

• HOUSE OF LORDS AND COMMONS: Poems by Ishion Hutchinson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• MR. MEMORY & OTHER POEMS by Phillis Levin (Penguin Books)
• WORLD OF MADE AND UNMADE by Jane Mead (Alice James Books)
• A WOMAN OF PROPERTY by Robyn Schiff (Penguin Books)
• GAP GARDENING: Selected Poems by Rosmarie Waldrop (New Directions)

Science & Technology

• PATIENT H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets by Luke Dittrich (Random House)
• GRUNT: The Curious Science of Humans at War by Mary Roach (W. W. Norton and Company)
• PANDEMIC: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond by Sonia Shah (Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• LIGHT: A Radiant History from Creation to the Quantum Age by Bruce Watson (Bloomsbury USA)
• I CONTAIN MULTITUDES: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong (Ecco)

Young Adult Literature

• THE HEAD OF THE SAINT written by Socorro Acioli, translated by Daniel Hahn (Delacorte)
• THE PASSION OF DOLSSA by Julie Berry (Viking Books for Young Readers)
• THE LIE TREE by Frances Hardinge (Harry N. Abrams)
• MARCH: Book Three by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell (Top Shelf Productions)
• BURN, BABY, BURN by Meg Medina (Candlewick)