31st Annual Northern California Book Awards

Winners announced Sunday, June 10, 2012

Master of Ceremonies Sedge Thomson, "West Coast Live"

FRED CODY AWARD FOR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT
in COMMUNITY & LITERATURE
Michael Pollan, author, journalist, food activist & cultural critic

NCBR RECOGNITION AWARD
Everything Is Its Own Reward, An All Over Coffee Collection,
Paul Madonna, City Lights

POETRY
Thread, Michael Palmer, New Directions - WINNER
Ciento: 100 100-Word Love Poems, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Wings Press
Come, Thief, Jane Hirshfield, Alfred A. Knopf
Sugar Zone, Mary Mackey, Marsh Hawk Press
When I Was a Poet, David Meltzer, City Lights

FICTION
Sequoia Gardens, Ernest J. Finney, Southern Methodist University Press - WINNER
A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion, Ron Hansen, Scribner
Turn of Mind, Alice LaPlante, Atlantic Monthly Press
Lola, California, Edie Meidav, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
We the Animals, Justin Torres, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

CREATIVE NONFICTION
Maya Roads: One Woman's Journey Among the People of the Rainforest, Mary Jo McConahay, Chicago Review Press - WINNER
A Journey with Two Maps: Becoming a Woman Poet, Eavan Boland, W. W. Norton
Everett Ruess: His Short Life, Mysterious Death, and Astonishing Afterlife, Philip L. Fradkin, University of California Press
The Left Coast: California on the Edge, Philip L. Fradkin, photos by Alex L. Fradkin, University of California Press
Rereading Women: Thirty Years of Exploring Our Literary Traditions, Sandra M. Gilbert, W.W. Norton

GENERAL NONFICTION
Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942, Ian W. Toll, W. W. Norton - WINNER
Exorbitant Privilege: The Rise and Fall of the Dollar and the Future of the International Monetary System, Barry Eichengreen, Oxford University Press
To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918, Adam Hochschild, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
The Shah, Abbas Milani, Palgrave Macmillan
Natural History of San Francisco Bay, California Natural History Guides, Ariel Rubissow Okamoto and Kathleen M. Wong, University of California Press

TRANSLATION
Fiction
The Twelve Chairs, Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, translated by Anne O. Fisher, Northwestern - WINNER
Tyrant Memory, Horacio Castellanos Moya, translated by Katherine Silver, New Directions
Poetry
The Changing Room, by Zhai Yongming, translated by Andrea Lingenfelter, Zephyr Press - WINNER
After Many Autumns: A Collection of Chinese Buddhist Literature, editors John Gill and Susan Tidwell, translated by John Balcom, Buddha's Light Publishing
My Naked Brain: Selected Poems of Leopoldo María Panero, translated by Arturo Mantecón, Swan Scythe Press

CHILDREN'S LITERATURE
Young Adult
Instructions for a Broken Heart, Kim Culbertson, Sourcebooks - WINNER
Why We Broke Up, Daniel Handler, illustrations by Maira Kalman, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Clean, Amy Reed, Simon Pulse
Younger Readers
Seabird in the Forest, Joan Dunning, Boyd Mills Press - WINNER
A Dazzling Display of Dogs, Betsy Franco, illustrations by Michael Wertz, Tricycle Press
Far from Shore: Chronicles of an Open Ocean Voyage, Sophie Webb, Houghton Mifflin Books for Children