Finalists Announced for the 80th Annual California Book Awards

The following books are finalists for the 80th Annual California Book Awards, presented by The Commonwealth Club of California. The winners will be announced the week of April 11th and will be celebrated in an Awards Ceremony on Thursday, June 2, 2011.

Poetry:
Camille T. Dungy, Suck on the Marrow. Published by Red Hen Press
Judy Halebsky, SKY=EMPTY. Published by New Issues Poetry & Prose
Barbara Jane Reyes, Diwata. Published by BOA Editions, Ltd
Alexandra Teague, Mortal Geography. Published by Persea
Brian Turner, Phantom Noise. Alice James Books

Non-Fiction:
Yunte Huang, Charlie Chan. Published by W. W. Norton & Co
Don Lattin, The Harvard Psychedelic Club. Published by HarperOne
Julia Whitty, Deep Blue Home: An Intimate Ecology of Our Wild Ocean. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

First Fiction:
Angie Chau, Quiet As They Come. Published by Ig Publishing
Tim Z. Hernandez, Breathing, In Dust. Published by Texas Tech University Press
Zachary Mason, The Lost Books of the Odyssey: A Novel. Published by Picador
Suzanne Rivecca, Death Is Not An Option: Stories. Published by W. W. Norton & Co.

Fiction:
Zoe Ferraris, City of Veils. Published by Little, Brown and Company
Joan Frank, In Envy Country: Stories. Published by University of Notre Dame Press
Eric Puchner, Model Home. Published by Scribner
Adrienne Sharp, The True Memoirs of Little K. Published by Farrar, Straus &; Giroux
Karen Tei Yamashita, I Hotel. Published by Coffee House Press

Children’s Books:
Cecil Castucci, Grandma’s Gloves. With illustrations by Julia Denos. Published by Candlewick Beverly Gherman, Sparky: The Life and Art of Charles Schulz. Published by Chronicle Books.
Rene Colato Lainez, From North to South/Del Norte Al Sur. With illustrations by Joe Cepeda.
Barbara Kerley, The Extraordinary Mark Twain (According to Susy). With illustrations by Edwin Fotheringham. Published by Scholastic Press
Icy Smith, Half Spoon of Rice: A Survival Story of the Cambodian Genocide. With illustrations by Sopaul Nhem. Published by East West Discovery Press.

Young Adult:
Margarita Engle, The Firefly Letters: A Suffragette’s Journey to Cuba. Published by Henry Holt and Co.
Ron Koertge, Shakespeare Makes the Playoffs. Published by Candlewick
Dana Reinhardt, The Things a Brother Knows. Published by Wendy Lamb Books
Neal Shusterman, Bruiser. Published by HarperTeen

California Book Award Gold Medal Winner Yiyun Li to be at Sonoma County Book Festival

There are many great reasons to visit Sonoma County, but for Bay Area book lovers, the Sonoma County Book Festival on September 25th is a really great reason. This year, Commonwealth Club members and friends will be pleased to see author Yiyun Li at the event. Li won a gold medal in this year's California Book Awards for her novel The Vagrants.

Learn more about the book festival, which is free to the public.


Photo: Author Yiyun Li speaks at The Commonwealth Club's California Book Awards ceremony on June 3, 2010. Photo by Beth Byrne.

From the Archives: Author Mary Doria Russell, from 2008

ime for a literary break. This article is from author Mary Doria Russell's March 17, 2008, speech and audience Q&A at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco. It was published in the June 2008 issue of The Commonwealth magazine, the member magazine of The Club.

From Commonwealth Club of California

From Commonwealth Club of California

The Bold Italic Hangs Out in The Club's Library

Visitors to The Commonwealth Club's main offices in San Francisco often find themselves browsing through the hundreds of books in our library as they wait for a program to start or for their friends to arrive.

Now comes word from the web site The Bold Italic (or should we say, The Bold Italic?) that our library has made the grade -- of some sort. We're still not quite sure what, but we think we're glad to be noticed. It's always a pleasure to find book lovers.

Read more at The Bold Italic's Bookmobile.