The 38th annual Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were awarded on Friday, April 20, 2018 in a public ceremony at USC’s Bovard Auditorium. The best books of 2017 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.

2017 Winners

Innovator's Award
Glory Edim, Well-Read Black Girl

Robert Kirsch Award
John Rechy

The Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose
THE HUE AND CRY AT OUR HOUSE: A Year Remembered, by Benjamin Taylor (Penguin Books)

Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction
SOUR HEART by Jenny Zhang (Lenny)

Biography
HENRY DAVID THOREAU: A Life, by Laura Dassow Walls (University of Chicago Press)

Current Interest
DEMOCRACY IN CHAINS: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America, by Nancy MacLean (Viking)

Fiction
EXIT WEST by Mohsin Hamid (Riverhead Books)

Graphic Novel/Comics
PRESENT by Leslie Stein (Drawn and Quarterly)

History
THE DEATH AND LIFE OF THE GREAT LAKES by Dan Egan (W. W. Norton & Company)

Mystery/Thriller
A BOOK OF AMERICAN MARTYRS by Joyce Carol Oates (Ecco)

Poetry
INCENDIARY ART: Poems, by Patricia Smith (TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press)

Science & Technology
BEHAVE: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst, by Robert M. Sapolsky (Penguin Press)

Young Adult Literature
LONG WAY DOWN by Jason Reynolds (Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books)

2017 Finalists

Innovator's Award

• Glory Edim, Well-Read Black Girl

Robert Kirsch Award

• John Rechy

The Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose

• THE HUE AND CRY AT OUR HOUSE: A Year Remembered, by Benjamin Taylor (Penguin Books)

Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction

• THE IDIOT by Elif Batuman (Penguin Press)
• GOODBYE, VITAMIN by Rachel Khong (Henry Holt and Co.)
• HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES by Carmen Maria Machado (Graywolf Press)
• MY ABSOLUTE DARLING by Gabriel Tallent (Riverhead Books)
• SOUR HEART by Jenny Zhang (Lenny)

Biography

• GRANT by Ron Chernow (Penguin Press)
• ALI: A Life, by Jonathan Eig (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• RICHARD NIXON: The Life, by John A. Farrell (Doubleday)
• FASTING AND FEASTING: The Life of Visionary Food Writer Patience Gray, by Adam Federman (Chelsea Green Publishing)
• HENRY DAVID THOREAU: A Life, by Laura Dassow Walls (University of Chicago Press)

Current Interest

• WE WERE EIGHT YEARS IN POWER: An American Tragedy, by Ta-Nehisi Coates (One World)
• LOCKING UP OUR OWN: Crime and Punishment in Black America, by James Forman Jr. (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• DEMOCRACY IN CHAINS: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America, by Nancy MacLean (Viking)
• THE FAR AWAY BROTHERS: Two Young Migrants and the Making of an American Life, by Lauren Markham (Crown)
• THE END OF LOYALTY: The Rise and Fall of Good Jobs in America, by Rick Wartzman PublicAffairs

Fiction

• EXIT WEST by Mohsin Hamid (Riverhead Books)
• THE CHANGELING by Victor LaValle (Spiegel & Grau)
• THE BURNING GIRL by Claire Messud (W. W. Norton & Company)
• GHACHAR GHOCHAR by Vivek Shanbhag, translated by Srinath Perur (Penguin Books)
• SING, UNBURIED, SING by Jesmyn Ward (Scribner)

Graphic Novel/Comics

• EVERYTHING IS FLAMMABLE by Gabrielle Bell (Uncivilized Books)
• THE INTERVIEW by Manuele Fior, translated by Jaime Richards (Fantagraphics)
• PRESENT by Leslie Stein (Drawn and Quarterly)
• ANTI-GONE by Connor Willumsen (Koyama Press)
• ICELAND by Yuichi Yokoyama (Retrofit Comics/Big Planet Comics)

History

• LONDON'S TRIUMPH: Merchants, Adventurers, and Money in Shakespeare's City, by Stephen Alford (Bloomsbury USA)
• HUE 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam, by Mark Bowden (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• THE DEATH AND LIFE OF THE GREAT LAKES by Dan Egan (W. W. Norton & Company)
• THE EVANGELICALS: The Struggle to Shape America, by Frances Fitzgerald (Simon & Schuster)
• THE COLOR OF LAW: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, by Richard Rothstein (Liveright)

Mystery/Thriller

• THE LATE SHOW by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown and Company)
• THE NIGHT OCEAN by Paul La Farge (Penguin Press)
• BLUEBIRD, BLUEBIRD by Attica Locke (Mulholland Books)
• A BOOK OF AMERICAN MARTYRS by Joyce Carol Oates (Ecco)
• WONDER VALLEY by Ivy Pochoda (Ecco)

Poetry

• DAYLILY CALLED IT A DANGEROUS MOMENT by Alessandra Lynch (Alice James Books)
• IN THE LANGUAGE OF MY CAPTOR by Shane McCrae (Wesleyan University Press)
• SEMIAUTOMATIC by Evie Shockley (Wesleyan University Press)
• INCENDIARY ART: Poems, by Patricia Smith (TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press)
• FOR THE SCRIBE by David Wojahn (University of Pittsburgh Press)

Science & Technology

• MAKING SENSE OF SCIENCE: Separating Substance from Spin, by Cornelia Dean (Belknap Press)
• A CRACK IN CREATION: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution, by Jennifer A. Doudna and Samuel H. Sternberg (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• BEHAVE: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst, by Robert M. Sapolsky (Penguin Press)
• LIFE 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, by Max Tegmark (Knopf)
• WHY WE SLEEP: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams, by Matthew Walker (Scribner)

Young Adult Literature

• GENUINE FRAUD by E. Lockhart (Delacorte Press)
• LONG WAY DOWN by Jason Reynolds (Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books)
• THE 57 BUS: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives, by Dashka Slater (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• THE HATE U GIVE by Angie Thomas (Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins Children's Publishing)
• PIECING ME TOGETHER by Renée Watson (Bloomsbury Children’s Books)