At a special ceremony in the penthouse of the Four Seasons Residences in Austin, Kirkus Reviews, the nation’s leading prepublication journal of book reviews, announced the winners for the first-ever Kirkus Prize in the categories of Fiction, Nonfiction and Young Readers’ Literature.

2014 marks the first year of the Kirkus Prize, one of the richest literary awards in the world, with a prize of $150,000 bestowed annually: $50,000 per category to authors of fiction, nonfiction and young readers’ literature. It was created to celebrate the 81 years of discerning, thoughtful criticism that Kirkus Reviews has contributed to both the publishing industry and readers at large.

For more information about The Kirkus Prize, please click here.
 

2014 Winners

FICTION:
EUPHORIA by Lily King (Atlantic Monthly Press)

NONFICTION:
CAN'T WE TALK ABOUT SOMETHING MORE PLEASANT? by Roz Chast (Bloomsbury)

YOUNG READERS’ LITERATURE:
AVIARY WONDERS INC.: Spring Catalog and Instruction Manual by Kate Samworth (Clarion)

2014 Finalists

FICTION:

• THE BLAZING WORLD by Siri Hustvedt (Simon & Schuster)
• EUPHORIA by Lily King (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• ALL OUR NAMES by Dinaw Mengestu (Knopf)
• FLORENCE GORDON by Brian Morton (Houghton Mifflin)
• THE REMEDY OF LOVE by Bill Roorbach (Algonquin Books)
• THE PAYING GUESTS by Sarah Waters (Riverhead)

 
NONFICTION:

• CAN'T WE TALK ABOUT SOMETHING MORE PLEASANT? by Roz Chast (Bloomsbury)
• JONATHAN SWIFT: His Life and His World, by Leo Damrosch (Yale University Press)
• THE SIXTH EXTINCTION: An Unnatural History, by Elizabeth Kolbert (Holt)
• THE LAGOON: How Aristotle Invented Science, by Armand Marie Leroi (Viking)
• CAPITAL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY by Thomas Piketty (Harvard University Press)
• JUST MERCY: A Story of Justice and Redemption, by Bryan Stevenson (Spiegel & Grau)

 
YOUNG READERS’ LITERATURE:
 
Picture Books:

• THE RIGHT WORD: Roget and His Thesaurus by Jen Bryant and Melissa Sweet (Eerdmans)
• AVIARY WONDERS INC.: Spring Catalog and Instruction Manual by Kate Samworth (Clarion)

 Middle Grade:

•  EL DEAFO by Cece Bell (Amulet/Abrams)
• THE KEY THAT SWALLOWED JOEY PIGZA by Jack Gantos (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

 Young Adult:

• THE STORY OF OWEN, DRAGON SLAYER OF TRONDHEIM by E.K. Johnston (Carolrhoda Lab)
• THE FREEDOM SUMMER MURDERS by Don Mitchell (Scholastic)