# Los Angeles Times Book Prize

Since 1980, the Los Angeles Times has awarded a set of annual book prizes. The Los Angeles Times Book Prize currently has nine categories: biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction (the Art Seidenbaum Award added in 1991), history, mystery/thriller (category added in 2000), poetry, science and technology (category added in 1989), and young adult fiction (category added in 1998). In addition, the Robert Kirsch Award is presented annually to a living author with a substantial connection to the American West. It is named in honor of Robert Kirsch, the Los Angeles Times book critic from 1952 until his death in 1980 whose idea it was to establish the book prizes.
The Book Prize program was founded by Art Seidenbaum, a Los Angeles Times book editor from 1978 to 1985. An award named for Seidenbaum was added a year after his death in 1990. Works are eligible during the year of their first US publication in English, and may be written originally in languages other than English. The author of each winning book and the Kirsch Award recipient receives a citation and $500. The prizes are presented the day before the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.

## Winners
### Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction

The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction winners :
| Year | Author | Title | Publisher |
| 1991 | David Wong Louie | Pangs of Love | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 1992 | Darryl Pinckney | High Cotton | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 1993 | Paul Kafka | Love | Houghton Mifflin |
| 1994 | Martin M. Šimecka | The Year of the Frog | Louisiana State University Press |
| 1995 | Mark Merlis | American Studies | Houghton Mifflin |
| 1996 | Mark Behr | The Smell of Apples | St. Martin's Press |
| 1997 | Carolyn Ferrell | Don't Erase Me: Stories | Houghton Mifflin |
| 1998 | C. S. Godshalk | Kalimantaan | Henry Holt |
| 1999 | Elizabeth Strout | Amy and Isabelle | Random House |
| 2000 | Pankaj Mishra | The Romantics | Random House |
| 2001 | Rachel Seiffert | The Dark Room | Pantheon Books |
| 2002 | Arthur Phillips | Prague | Random House |
| 2003 | Mark Haddon | The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time | Doubleday |
| 2004 | Lorraine Adams | Harbor | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2005 | Uzodinma Iweala | Beasts of No Nation | HarperCollins |
| 2006 | Alice Greenway | White Ghost Girls | Black Cat / Grove/Atlantic |
| 2007 | Dinaw Mengestu | The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears | Riverhead |
| 2008 | Zoë Ferraris | Finding Nouf | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |
| 2009 | Philipp Meyer | American Rust | Spiegel & Grau |
| 2010 | Peter Bognanni | The House of Tomorrow | Amy Einhorn Books/G.P. Putnam's Sons |
| 2011 | Ismet Prcic | Shards | Black Cat / Grove/Atlantic |
| 2012 | Maggie Shipstead | Seating Arrangements | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2013 | NoViolet Bulawayo | We Need New Names | Reagan Arthur Books |
| 2014 | Valeria Luiselli with Christina MacSweeney (trans.) | Faces in the Crowd | Coffee House Press |
| 2015 | Chigozie Obioma | The Fisherman | Little, Brown and Company |
| 2016 | Nathan Hill | The Nix | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2017 | Jenny Zhang | Sour Heart | Random House |
| 2018 | Nafissa Thompson-Spires | Heads of the Colored People | Atria/37 Ink |
| 2019 | Namwali Serpell | The Old Drift | Hogarth Press |
| 2020 | Deesha Philyaw | The Secret Lives of Church Ladies | West Virginia University Press |
| 2021 | Jackie Polzin | Brood | Doubleday |
| 2022 | Aamina Ahmad | The Return of Faraz Ali | Hodder & Stoughton |
| 2023 | Shannon Sanders | Company: Stories | Graywolf Press |

### Biography

Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography winners :
| Year | Author | Title | Publisher |
| 1981 | David McCullough | Mornings on Horseback | Simon & Schuster |
| 1982 | Gay Wilson Allen | Waldo Emerson: A Biography | Viking |
| 1983 | Seymour Hersh | The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House | Summit Books |
| 1984 | Ernst Pawel | The Nightmare of Reason | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 1985 | Michael Scammell | Solzhenitsyn | W.W. Norton & Company |
| 1986 | Maynard Mack | Alexander Pope: A Life | W.W. Norton & Company |
| 1987 | Kenneth S. Lynn | Hemingway | Simon & Schuster |
| 1988 | Brenda Maddox | Nora: The Real Life of Molly Bloom | Houghton Mifflin |
| 1989 | Tobias Wolff | This Boy's Life: A Memoir | Atlantic Monthly Press |
| 1990 | Geoffrey C. Ward | A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt | Harper & Row |
| 1991 | T. H. Watkins | Righteous Pilgrim: The Life and Times of Harold L. Ickes, 1874–1952 | Henry Holt |
| 1992 | Blanche Wiesen Cook | Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume One, 1884–1933 | Viking |
| 1993 | John Mack Faragher | Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer | Henry Holt |
| 1994 | Mikal Gilmore | Shot in the Heart | Doubleday |
| 1995 | Doris Lessing | Under My Skin: Volume One of My Autobiography, to 1949 | HarperCollins |
| 1996 | Frank McCourt | Angela's Ashes: A Memoir | Scribner |
| 1997 | Sam Tanenhaus | Whittaker Chambers: A Biography | Random House |
| 1998 | A. Scott Berg | Lindbergh | G.P. Putnam's Sons |
| 1999 | Judith Thurman | Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2000 | William J. Cooper, Jr. | Jefferson Davis, American | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2001 | Edmund Morris | Theodore Rex | Random House |
| 2002 | Robert A. Caro | Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. 3 | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2003 | Neil Smith | American Empire: Roosevelt's Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization | University of California Press |
| 2004 | Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan | de Kooning: An American Master | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2005 | Hilary Spurling | Matisse the Master: A Life of Henri Matisse, the Conquest of Colour, 1909–1954 | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2006 | Neal Gabler | Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2007 | Simon Sebag Montefiore | Young Stalin | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2008 | Paula J. Giddings | Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching | Amistad/HarperCollins |
| 2009 | Linda Gordon | Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits | W.W. Norton & Company |
| 2010 | Laura Hillenbrand | Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption | Random House |
| 2011 | John A. Farrell | Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned | Doubleday |
| 2012 | Robert A. Caro | The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2013 | Marie Arana | Bolivar: American Liberator | Simon & Schuster |
| 2014 | Andrew Roberts | Napoleon: A Life | Viking |
| 2015 | Hayden Herrera | Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2016 | Volker Ullrich with Jefferson Chase (trans.) | Hitler: Ascent, 1889–1939 | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2017 | Laura Walls | Henry David Thoreau: A Life | University of Chicago Press |
| 2018 | David W. Blight | Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom | Simon & Schuster |
| 2019 | George Packer | Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2020 | William Souder | Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck | W.W. Norton & Company |
| 2021 | Paul Auster | Burning Boy: The Life and Work of Stephen Crane | Henry Holt & Company |
| 2022 | Beverly Gage | G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century | Viking Press |
| 2023 | Gregg Hecimovich | The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts: The True Story of The Bondwoman’s Narrative | Ecco/HarperCollins |

### Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose

The Los Angeles Times – Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose has been awarded in partnership with the Christopher Isherwood Foundation since April 2017 (for 2016).
The Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose winners :
| Year | Author | Title | Publisher |
| 2016 | Wesley Lowery | "They Can't Kill Us All": Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America's Racial Justice Movement | Little, Brown and Company |
| 2017 | Benjamin Taylor | The Hue and Cry at Our House: A Year Remembered | Penguin Books |
| 2018 | Kiese Laymon | Heavy: An American Memoir | Scribner Book Company |
| 2019 | Emily Bernard | Black Is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother's Time, My Mother's Time, and Mine | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2020 | Andrew O'Hagan | Mayflies | |
| 2021 | Deborah Levy | Real Estate: A Living Autobiography | Bloomsbury |
| 2022 | Javier Zamora | Solito: A Memoir. | Hogarth Press |
| 2023 | Claire Dederer | Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma | Alfred A. Knopf |

### Current interest

Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current Interest winners :
| Year | Author | Title | Publisher |
| 1980 | Harrison Salisbury | Without Fear or Favor | New York Times Books |
| 1981 | Jacobo Timerman | Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 1982 | Jonathan Schell | The Fate of the Earth | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 1983 | Walker Percy | Lost in the Cosmos | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 1984 | Jane Jacobs | Cities and the Wealth of Nations | Random House |
| 1985 | Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler and Steven M. Tipton | Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life | University of California Press |
| 1986 | Joseph Lelyveld | Move Your Shadow: South Africa, Black and White | Times Books |
| 1987 | Richard Dawkins | The Blind Watchmaker | W.W. Norton & Company |
| 1988 | William Greider | Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country | Simon & Schuster |
| 1989 | Taylor Branch | Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963 | Simon & Schuster |
| 1990 | O. B. Hardison, Jr. | Disappearing through the Skylight: Culture and Technology in the Twentieth Century | Viking |
| 1991 | E. J. Dionne, Jr. | Why Americans Hate Politics: The Death of the Democratic Process | Simon & Schuster |
| 1992 | Francis Fukuyama | The End of History and the Last Man | The Free Press |
| 1993 | Peter Skerry | Mexican Americans: The Ambivalent Minority | The Free Press |
| 1994 | Henry Kissinger | Diplomacy | Simon & Schuster |
| 1995 | Gregory Howard Williams | Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy Who Discovered He Was Black | Dutton |
| 1996 | Peter Maass | Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 1997 | Anne Fadiman | The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 1998 | Philip Gourevitch | We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 1999 | Mitchell Duneier with Ovie Carter (photographer) | Sidewalk | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2000 | Frances FitzGerald | Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War | Simon & Schuster |
| 2001 | Barbara Ehrenreich | Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America | Metropolitan Books / Henry Holt and Company |
| 2002 | Judith Levine | Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex | University of Minnesota Press |
| 2003 | Ross Terrill | The New Chinese Empire - And What It Means for the United States | Basic Books |
| 2004 | Evan Wright | Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America and the New Face of American War | G.P. Putnam's Sons |
| 2005 | Anthony Shadid | Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War | Henry Holt |
| 2006 | Ian Buruma | Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance | Penguin Press |
| 2007 | Elizabeth D. Samet | Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2008 | Barton Gellman | Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency | Penguin Press |
| 2009 | Dave Eggers | Zeitoun | McSweeney's Books |
| 2010 | Michael Lewis | The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine | W. W. Norton & Company |
| 2011 | Daniel Kahneman | Thinking, Fast and Slow | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2012 | Katherine Boo | Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity | Random House |
| 2013 | Sheri Fink | Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital | Crown |
| 2014 | Jeff Hobbs | The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League | Scribner |
| 2015 | Sarah Chayes | Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security | W.W. Norton and Company |
| 2016 | Svetlana Alexievich with Bela Shayevich (trans.) | Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets | Random House |
| 2017 | Nancy MacLean | Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America | Viking Press |
| 2018 | Francisco Cantu | The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches From the Border | Riverhead Books |
| 2019 | Emily Bazelon | Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration | Random House |
| 2020 | Isabel Wilkerson | Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents | Random House |
| 2021 | Adam Schiff | Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could | Random House |
| 2022 | Dahlia Lithwick | Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America | Penguin Press |
| 2023 | Roxanna Asgarian | We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |

### Fiction

Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction winners :
| Year | Author | Title | Publisher |
| 1980 | Walker Percy | The Second Coming | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 1981 | D.M. Thomas | The White Hotel | Viking |
| 1982 | Robert Stone | A Flag for Sunrise | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 1983 | Thomas Keneally | Schindler's Ark | Simon & Schuster |
| 1984 | Milan Kundera | The Unbearable Lightness of Being | Harper & Row |
| 1985 | Louise Erdrich | Love Medicine | Holt, Rinehart and Winston |
| 1986 | Margaret Atwood | The Handmaid's Tale | Houghton Mifflin |
| 1987 | James Welch | Fools Crow | Viking |
| 1988 | Gabriel García Marquez | Love in the Time of Cholera | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 1989 | Fay Weldon | The Heart of the Country | Viking |
| 1990 | Edna O'Brien | Lantern Slides | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 1991 | Allan Gurganus | White People | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 1992 | Art Spiegelman | Maus II, A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began | Pantheon Books |
| 1993 | Barbara Kingsolver | Pigs in Heaven | HarperCollins |
| 1994 | David Malouf | Remembering Babylon | Pantheon Books |
| 1995 | William Boyd | The Blue Afternoon | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 1996 | Rohinton Mistry | A Fine Balance | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 1997 | James Carlos Blake | In the Rogue Blood | Avon Books |
| 1998 | W. G. Sebald with Michael Hulse (trans.) | The Rings of Saturn | New Directions |
| 1999 | Amit Chaudhuri | Freedom Song: Three Novels | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2000 | David Means | Assorted Fire Events | Context Books |
| 2001 | Mary Robison | Why Did I Ever | Counterpoint |
| 2002 | Ian McEwan | Atonement | Nan A. Talese/Doubleday |
| 2003 | Pete Dexter | Train | Doubleday |
| 2004 | Colm Tóibín | The Master | Scribner |
| 2005 | Gabriel García Márquez with Edith Grossman (trans.) | Memories of My Melancholy Whores | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2006 | A. B. Yehoshua with Hillel Halkin (trans.) | A Woman in Jerusalem | Harcourt |
| 2007 | Andrew O'Hagan | Be Near Me | Harcourt |
| 2008 | Marilynne Robinson | Home | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2009 | Rafael Yglesias | A Happy Marriage | Scribner |
| 2010 | Jennifer Egan | A Visit from the Goon Squad | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2011 | Alex Shakar | Luminarium | SOHO Press |
| 2012 | Ben Fountain | Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk | HarperCollins Publishers / Ecco |
| 2013 | Ruth Ozeki | A Tale for the Time Being | Viking |
| 2014 | Siri Hustvedt | The Blazing World | Simon & Schuster |
| 2015 | Valeria Luiselli | The Story of My Teeth | Coffee House Press |
| 2016 | Adam Haslett | Imagine Me Gone | Little, Brown and Company |
| 2017 | Mohsin Hamid | Exit West | Riverhead Books |
| 2018 | Rebecca Makkai | The Great Believers | Viking |
| 2019 | Ben Lerner | The Topeka School | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2020 | David Diop with Anna Moschovakis (trans.) | At Night All Blood Is Black | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2021 | Véronique Tadjo | In the Company of Men | Don Quichotte |
| 2022 | Mircea Cărtărescu with Sean Cotter (trans.) | Solenoid | Deep Vellum |
| 2023 | Ed Park | Same Bed Different Dreams | Random House |

### Graphic Novel/Comics

Los Angeles Book Prize for Graphic Novel winners :
| Year | Author | Title | Publisher |
| 2009 | David Mazzucchelli | Asterios Polyp | Pantheon |
| 2010 | Adam Hines | Duncan the Wonder Dog: Show One | AdHouse Books |
| 2011 | Carla Speed McNeil | Finder: Voice | Dark Horse |
| 2012 | Sammy Harkham | Everything Together: Collected Stories | PictureBox |
| 2013 | Ulli Lust | Today Is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life | Fantagraphics |
| 2014 | Jaime Hernandez | The Love Bunglers | Fantagraphics |
| 2015 | Riad Sattouf | Arab of the Future: A Childhood in the Middle East, 1978–1984 | Metropolitan Books |
| 2016 | Nick Drnaso | Beverly | Drawn & Quarterly |
| 2017 | Leslie Stein | Present | Drawn & Quarterly |
| 2018 | Tillie Walden | On a Sunbeam | First Second Books |
| 2019 | Eleanor Davis | The Hard Tomorrow | Drawn & Quarterly |
| 2020 | Bishakh Kumar Som | Apsara Engine | |
| 2021 | R. Kikuo Johnson | No One Else | Fantagraphics |
| 2022 | Jamila Rowser and Robyn Smith | Wash Day Diaries | |
| 2023 | Emily Carroll | A Guest in the House | First Second Books |

### History

Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History winners :
| Year | Author | Title | Publisher |
| 1980 | Ronald Steel | Walter Lippmann and the American Century | Atlantic/Little, Brown and Co. |
| 1981 | Ray Allen Billington | Land of Savagery/Land of Promise | W.W. Norton & Company |
| 1982 | Jonathan D. Spence | The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution, 1895–1980 | Viking |
| 1983 | Fernand Braudel | The Wheels of Commerce | Harper & Row |
| 1984 | Robert Darnton | The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History | Basic Books |
| 1985 | Evan S. Connell | Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Bighorn | North Point Press |
| 1986 | Geoffrey Hosking | The First Socialist Society: A History of the Soviet Union from Within | Harvard University Press |
| 1987 | Robert Jay Lifton | The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide | Basic Books |
| 1988 | Eric Foner | Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 | Harper & Row |
| 1989 | Neal Gabler | An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood | Crown |
| 1990 | Richard Fletcher | The Quest for El Cid | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 1991 | Nicholas Lemann | The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 1992 | Alexander Stille | Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families under Fascism | Summit |
| 1993 | Anthony Grafton | New Worlds, Ancient Texts: The Power of Tradition and the Shock of Discovery | Harvard University Press |
| 1994 | George Chauncey | Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890–1940 | Basic Books |
| 1995 | Jackson Lears | Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America | Basic Books |
| 1996 | Neal Ascherson | Black Sea | Hill & Wang |
| 1997 | Orlando Figes | A People's Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution | Viking |
| 1998 | Roy Porter | The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity | W.W. Norton & Company |
| 1999 | John W. Dower | Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II | W.W. Norton & Company |
| 2000 | Alice Kaplan | The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach | University of Chicago Press |
| 2001 | Rick Perlstein | Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus | Hill and Wang Division/Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2002 | Michael B. Oren | Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East | Oxford University Press |
| 2003 | Henry Wiencek | An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2004 | Geoffrey R. Stone | Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism | W.W. Norton & Company |
| 2005 | Adam Hochschild | Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves | Houghton Mifflin |
| 2006 | Lawrence Wright | The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2007 | Tim Weiner | Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA | Doubleday |
| 2008 | Mark Mazower | Hitler's Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe | Penguin Press |
| 2009 | Kevin Starr | Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance 1950–1963 | Oxford University Press |
| 2010 | Thomas Powers | The Killing of Crazy Horse | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2011 | Richard White | Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America | W.W. Norton & Company |
| 2012 | Fergus M. Bordewich | America's Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise That Preserved the Union | Simon & Schuster |
| 2013 | Christopher Clark | The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 | HarperCollins |
| 2014 | Adam Tooze | The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916–1931 | Viking |
| 2015 | Dan Ephron | Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel | W.W. Norton & Company |
| 2016 | Benjamin Madley | An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846–1873 | Yale University Press |
| 2017 | Dan Egan | The Death and Life of the Great Lakes | W.W. Norton & Company |
| 2018 | Julia Boyd | Travelers in the Third Reich: The Rise of Fascism: 1919–1945 | Pegasus Books |
| 2019 | Stephanie Jones-Rogers | They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South | Yale University Press |
| 2020 | Martha S. Jones | Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All | Basic Books |
| 2021 | Ada Ferrer | Cuba: An American History | Scribner |
| 2022 | Margaret A. Burnham | By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow's Legal Executioners | W.W. Norton & Company |
| 2023 | Joya Chatterji | Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century | Yale University Press |

### Mystery/thriller

Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller winners :
| Year | Author | Title | Publisher |
| 2000 | Val McDermid | A Place of Execution | St. Martin's Press/Minotaur |
| 2001 | T. Jefferson Parker | Silent Joe | Hyperion |
| 2002 | George P. Pelecanos | Hell to Pay | Little, Brown and Company |
| 2003 | George P. Pelecanos | Soul Circus | Little, Brown and Company |
| 2004 | Kem Nunn | Tijuana Straits | Scribner |
| 2005 | Robert Littell | Legends: A Novel of Dissimulation | Overlook Press |
| 2006 | Michael Connelly | Echo Park | |
| 2007 | Karin Fossum with Charlotte Barslund (trans.) | The Indian Bride | Harcourt |
| 2008 | Michael Koryta | Envy the Night | Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's /Minotaur |
| 2009 | Stuart Neville | The Ghosts of Belfast | SOHO Press |
| 2010 | Tom Franklin | Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter | William Morrow and Co. |
| 2011 | Stephen King | 11/22/63 | Scribner |
| 2012 | Tana French | Broken Harbor | Viking |
| 2013 | Robert Galbraith (J. K. Rowling) | The Cuckoo's Calling | Mulholland Books/Little, Brown and Company |
| 2014 | Tom Bouman | Dry Bones in the Valley | W.W. Norton and Company |
| 2015 | Don Winslow | The Cartel | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2016 | Bill Beverly | Dodgers | Crown |
| 2017 | Joyce Carol Oates | A Book of American Martyrs | Ecco |
| 2018 | Oyinkan Braithwaite | My Sister, the Serial Killer | Viking |
| 2019 | Steph Cha | Your House Will Pay | Ecco |
| 2020 | S. A. Cosby | Blacktop Wasteland | Flatiron Books |
| 2021 | Megan Abbott | The Turnout | G.P. Putnam's Sons |
| 2022 | Alex Segura | Secret Identity: A Novel | Flatiron Books |
| 2023 | Ivy Pochoda | Sing Her Down | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |

### Poetry

Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry winners :
| Year | Author | Title | Publisher |
| 1980 | Robert Kelly | Kill the Messenger | Black Sparrow |
| 1981 | Ntozake Shange | Three Pieces | St. Martin's Press |
| 1982 | Allen Ginsberg | Plutonian Ode and Other Poems, 1977–1980 | City Lights |
| 1983 | James Merrill | The Changing Light at Sandover | Atheneum |
| 1984 | Charles Olson | The Maximus Poems | University of California Press |
| 1985 | X.J. Kennedy | Cross Ties | University of Georgia Press |
| 1986 | Derek Walcott | Collected Poems, 1948–1984 | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 1987 | William Meredith | Partial Accounts: New and Selected Poems | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 1988 | Richard Wilbur | New and Collected Poems | Harcourt Brace Jovanovich |
| 1989 | Donald Hall | The One Day: A Poem in Three Parts | Ticknor & Fields/ Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |
| 1990 | John Caddy | The Color of Mesabi Bones | Milkweed |
| 1991 | Philip Levine | What Work Is | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 1992 | Adrienne Rich | An Atlas of the Difficult World: Poems 1988-1991 | W.W. Norton & Company |
| 1993 | Mark Doty | My Alexandria | University of Illinois Press |
| 1994 | Carolyn Forché | The Angel of History | HarperCollins |
| 1995 | Robert Pinsky | The Inferno of Dante | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 1996 | Alan Shapiro | Mixed Company | The University of Chicago Press |
| 1997 | Charles Wright | Black Zodiac | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 1998 | Alice Notley | Mysteries of Small Houses | Penguin Press |
| 1999 | C. K. Williams | Repair: Poems | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2000 | Gjertrud Schnackenberg | The Throne of Labdacus | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2001 | Anne Carson | The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2002 | Cynthia Zarin | The Watercourse: Poems | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2003 | Anthony Hecht | Collected Later Poems | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2004 | Richard Howard | Inner Voices: Selected Poems, 1963–2003 | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2005 | Jack Gilbert | Refusing Heaven: Poems | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2006 | Frederick Seidel | Ooga-Booga | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2007 | Stanley Plumly | Old Heart: Poems | W.W. Norton & Company |
| 2008 | Frank Bidart | Watching the Spring Festival: Poems | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2009 | Brenda Hillman | Practical Water | Wesleyan University Press |
| 2010 | Maxine Kumin | Where I Live: New & Selected Poems 1990–2010 | W.W. Norton & Company |
| 2011 | Carl Phillips | Double Shadow: Poems | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2012 | Louise Glück | Poems 1962–2012 | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2013 | Ron Padgett | Collected Poems | Coffee House Press |
| 2014 | Claudia Rankine | Citizen: An American Lyric | Graywolf Press |
| 2015 | Jorie Graham | From the New World: Poems 1976–2014 | Ecco/HarperCollins |
| 2016 | Rosmarie Waldrop | Gap Gardening: Selected Poems | New Directions |
| 2017 | Patricia Smith | Incendiary Art: Poems | TriQuarterly/Northwestern University Press |
| 2018 | Carl Phillips | Wild Is the Wind: Poems | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2019 | Ilya Kaminsky | Deaf Republic: Poems | Graywolf Press |
| 2020 | Victoria Chang | Obit | |
| 2021 | Diane Seuss | frank: sonnets | Graywolf Press |
| 2022 | Dionne Brand | Nomenclature: New and Collected Poems | Duke University Press |
| 2023 | Airea D. Matthews | Bread and Circus: Poems | Scribner |

### Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction

The Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction winners :
| Year | Author | Title | Publisher |
| 2019 | Marlon James | Black Leopard, Red Wolf | |
| 2020 | Stephen Graham Jones | The Only Good Indians | |
| 2021 | Zen Cho | Spirits Abroad: Stories | Small Beer |
| 2022 | Nicola Griffith | Spear | |
| 2023 | Tananarive Due | The Reformatory | Saga Press |

### Science and technology

Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and Technology winners :
| Year | Author | Title | Publisher |
| 1989 | Frans de Waal | Peacemaking among Primates | Harvard University Press |
| 1990 | Jane S. Smith | Patenting the Sun: Polio and the Salk Vaccine | William Morrow and Co. |
| 1991 | Grigori Medvedev | The Truth About Chernobyl | Basic Books |
| 1992 | Jared Diamond | The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal | HarperCollins |
| 1993 | Daniel McNeill and Paul Freiberger | Fuzzy Logic: The Discovery of a Revolutionary Computer Technology -- and How It Is Changing Our World | Simon & Schuster |
| 1994 | Jonathan Weiner | The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 1995 | Edward O. Wilson | Naturalist | Island Press |
| 1996 | Carl Sagan | The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark | Random House |
| 1997 | Steven Pinker | How the Mind Works | W.W. Norton & Company |
| 1998 | Douglas Starr | Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 1999 | Dava Sobel | Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love | Walker and Company |
| 2000 | James Le Fanu, M.D. | The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine | Carroll & Graf |
| 2001 | Richard Hamblyn | The Invention of Clouds: How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2002 | Brenda Maddox | Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA | HarperCollins |
| 2003 | Philip J. Hilts | Protecting America's Health: The FDA, Business, and One Hundred Years of Regulation | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2004 | Charles Wohlforth | The Whale and the Supercomputer: On the Northern Front of Climate Change | North Point Press / Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2005 | Diana Preston | Before the Fallout: From Marie Curie to Hiroshima | Walker & Company |
| 2006 | Eric R. Kandel | In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind | W.W. Norton & Company |
| 2007 | Douglas Hofstadter | I Am a Strange Loop | Basic Books |
| 2008 | Leonard Susskind | The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics | Little, Brown and Company |
| 2009 | Graham Farmelo | The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom | Basic Books/Perseus Book Group |
| 2010 | Oren Harman | The Price of Altruism: George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness | W.W. Norton & Company |
| 2011 | Sylvia Nasar | Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius | Simon & Schuster |
| 2012 | Florence Williams | Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History | W.W. Norton & Company |
| 2013 | Alan Weisman | Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth? | Little, Brown and Company |
| 2014 | Elizabeth Kolbert | The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History | Henry Holt & Co |
| 2015 | Andrea Wulf | The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World | Alfred A. Knopf |
| 2016 | Luke Dittrich | Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets | Random House |
| 2017 | Robert Sapolsky | Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst | Penguin Books |
| 2018 | Beth Macy | Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America | Little, Brown and Company |
| 2019 | Maria Popova | Figuring | Pantheon |
| 2020 | Sara Seager | The Smallest Lights in the Universe: A Memoir | Crown |
| 2021 | Chanda Prescod-Weinstein | The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred | Bold Type Books |
| 2022 | Sabrina Imbler | How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures | Little, Brown and Company |
| 2023 | Eugenia Cheng | Is Math Real? How Simple Questions Lead Us To Mathematics' Deepest Truths. | |

### Young adult literature

Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature winners :
| Year | Author | Title | Publisher |
| 1998 | Joan Bauer | Rules of the Road | G.P. Putnam's Sons |
| 1999 | Robert Cormier | Frenchtown Summer | Delacorte Press |
| 2000 | Jacqueline Woodson | Miracle's Boys | G.P. Putnam's Son |
| 2001 | Mildred D. Taylor | The Land | Phyllis Fogelman Books / G.P. Putnam's Sons |
| 2002 | M. T. Anderson | Feed | Candlewick Press |
| 2003 | Jennifer Donnelly | A Northern Light | Harcourt Children's Books |
| 2004 | Melvin Burgess | Doing It | Henry Holt Books for Young Readers |
| 2005 | Per Nilsson with Tara Chace (trans.) | You & You & You | Front Street/Boyds Mills Press |
| 2006 | Coe Booth | Tyrell | Push / Scholastic |
| 2007 | Philip Reeve | A Darkling Plain | Scholastic |
| 2008 | Terry Pratchett | Nation | HarperCollins |
| 2009 | Elizabeth Partridge | Marching for Freedom: Walk Together Children and Don't You Grow Weary | Viking Children's Books/Penguin Group |
| 2010 | Megan Whalen Turner | A Conspiracy of Kings | Greenwillow/HarperCollins |
| 2011 | Pete Hautman | The Big Crunch | Scholastic |
| 2012 | A. S. King | Ask the Passengers | Little, Brown and Company |
| 2013 | Gene Yang | Boxers and Saints | First Second/Macmillan |
| 2014 | Candace Fleming | The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia | Schwartz & Wade/Random House Children's |
| 2015 | Marilyn Nelson | My Seneca Village | Namelos |
| 2016 | Frances Hardinge | The Lie Tree | Harry N. Abrams |
| 2017 | Jason Reynolds | Long Way Down | |
| 2018 | Elizabeth Acevedo | The Poet X | HarperTeen |
| 2019 | Malla Nunn | When the Ground Is Hard | G.P. Putnam |
| 2020 | Yusef Salaam and Ibi Zoboi | Punching the Air | Balzer + Bray |
| 2021 | Rita Williams-Garcia | A Sitting in St. James | Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins Children's Books |
| 2022 | Lyn Miller-Lachmann | Torch | |
| 2023 | Amber McBride | Gone Wolf | Feiwel & Friends |

### Innovator's Award

Innovator's Award winners :
| Year | Author |
| 2009 | Dave Eggers |
| 2010 | Powell's Books, bookstore |
| 2011 | Figment, self-publishing platform |
| 2012 | Margaret Atwood |
| 2013 | John Green |
| 2014 | LeVar Burton |
| 2015 | James Patterson |
| 2016 | Rueben Martinez |
| 2017 | Glory Edim |
| 2018 | Library of America |
| 2019 | WriteGirl |
| 2020 | Book Industry Charitable Foundation |
| 2021 | Reginald Dwayne Betts |
| 2022 | Freedom to Read Foundation |
| 2023 | — |

### Robert Kirsch Award

The Robert Kirsch Award winners :
| Year | Author |
| 1980 | Wallace Stegner |
| 1981 | Wright Morris |
| 1982 | Ross Macdonald |
| 1983 | M. F. K. Fisher |
| 1984 | Christopher Isherwood |
| 1985 | Janet Lewis |
| 1986 | Kay Boyle |
| 1987 | Paul Horgan |
| 1988 | Thom Gunn |
| 1989 | Karl Shapiro |
| 1990 | Czeslaw Milosz |
| 1991 | Ken Kesey |
| 1992 | Diane Johnson |
| 1993 | Carolyn See |
| 1994 | Brian Moore |
| 1995 | Stephen J. Pyne |
| 1996 | Gary Snyder |
| 1997 | Ray Bradbury |
| 1998 | John Sanford |
| 1999 | Ursula K. Le Guin |
| 2000 | Lawrence Ferlinghetti |
| 2001 | Tillie Olsen |
| 2002 | Larry McMurtry |
| 2003 | Ishmael Reed |
| 2004 | Tony Hillerman |
| 2005 | Joan Didion |
| 2006 | William Kittredge |
| 2007 | Maxine Hong Kingston |
| 2008 | Robert Alter |
| 2009 | Evan S. Connell |
| 2010 | Beverly Cleary |
| 2011 | Rudolfo Anaya |
| 2012 | Kevin Starr |
| 2013 | Susan Straight |
| 2014 | TC Boyle |
| 2015 | Juan Felipe Herrera |
| 2016 | Thomas McGuane |
| 2017 | John Rechy |
| 2018 | Terry Tempest Williams |
| 2019 | Walter Mosley |
| 2020 | Leslie Marmon Silko |
| 2021 | Luis J. Rodriguez |
| 2022 | James Ellroy |
| 2023 | Jane Smiley |