Friends of Montclair Library

Still looking for summer reading suggestions? The Northern California Book Reviewers announced the winners of the 31st Annual Northern California Book Awards June 10, 2012, with options in fiction, non-fiction, poetry, teen books and children’s books. Items in the Montclair branch collection (plus a few available at nearby libraries) are highlighted below.

Btw, the poetry nominees included local poet David Meltzer, who was profiled in The Montclarion 6/29/12.

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

POETRY
WINNER: Thread by Michael Palmer (at Main)
Ciento: 100 100-Word Love Poems by Lorna Dee Cervantes
Come, Thief by Jane Hirshfield
Sugar Zone by Mary Mackey
When I Was a Poet by David Meltzer

FICTION
WINNER: Sequoia Gardens by Ernest J. Finney
A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion by Ron Hansen
Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante
Lola, California by Edie Meidav
We the Animals by Justin Torres

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

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

TRANSLATION
Fiction
WINNER: The Twelve Chairs by Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, translated by Anne O. Fisher
Tyrant Memory by Horacio Castellanos Moya, translated by Katherine Silver
Poetry
WINNER: The Changing Room by Zhai Yongming, translated by Andrea Lingenfelter
After Many Autumns: A Collection of Chinese Buddhist Literature edited by John Gill and Susan Tidwell, translated by John Balcom
My Naked Brain: Selected Poems of Leopoldo María Panero, translated by Arturo Mantecón

CHILDREN’S LITERATURE
Young Adult
WINNER: Instructions for a Broken Heart by Kim Culbertson (at Dimond)
Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler, illustrations by Maira Kalman
Clean by Amy Reed
Younger Readers
WINNER: Seabird in the Forest by Joan Dunning
A Dazzling Display of Dogs by Betsy Franco (at Piedmont)
Far from Shore: Chronicles of an Open Ocean Voyage by Sophie Webb