# City of Vancouver Book Award

The City of Vancouver Book Award is a Canadian literary award, that has been presented annually by the city of Vancouver, British Columbia to one or more works of literature judged as the year's best fiction, non-fiction, poetry or drama work about the city.
As with the City of Toronto Book Award, the award may go to one or more books.
The award has a monetary value of $3,000. The prize is funded by interest earned from the city's publishing reserve, which was established in 1977 as a permanent legacy for writers and publishers. The fund received royalties generated from Vancouver's First Century: A Photo History of Vancouver, edited by city staff. The third edition of the book, renamed Vancouver: A City Album, or many years generated royalty payments for the fund.

## Honorees

City of Vancouver Book Award winners and finalists :
| Year | Author | Title | Result |
| 1989 | Paul Yee | Saltwater City: An Illustrated History of the Chinese in Vancouver | Winner |
| 1990 | Sky Lee | Disappearing Moon Cafe | Winner |
| 1990 | Rosemary Brown | Being Brown: A Very Public Life | Finalist |
| 1990 | Stan Persky | Buddy's: Meditations on Desire | Finalist |
| 1990 | John Schreiner | The Refiners: A Century of BC Sugar | Finalist |
| 1991 | Michael Kluckner | Vanishing Vancouver | Winner |
| 1991 | Cyril Leonoff | Leonard Frank: An Enterprising Life | Finalist |
| 1991 | Robin Ward | Robin Ward's Vancouver | Finalist |
| 1992 | Gerald Straley | Trees of Vancouver: A Guide to the Common and Unusual Trees of the City | Winner |
| 1992 | Elizabeth Bower | No Forwarding Address | Finalist |
| 1992 | Gregory Edwards | Hidden Cities | Finalist |
| 1992 | Paul Grescoe | Flesh Wound | Finalist |
| 1992 | Timothy Oke and Graeme Wynn | Vancouver and Its Regions | Finalist |
| 1993 | Bruce Macdonald | Vancouver: A Visual History | Winner |
| 1993 | Irene Howard | The Struggle for Social Justice in British Columbia | Finalist |
| 1993 | Michael Kluckner and John Atkin | Heritage Walks Around Vancouver | Finalist |
| 1994 | Denise Chong | The Concubine's Children | Winner |
| 1994 | Paul Grescoe and Karl Spreitz | Vancouver: Visions of a City | Finalist |
| 1994 | Robin Ward | Robin Ward's Heritage West Coast | Finalist |
| 1994 | Michael J. Yates | Line Screw | Finalist |
| 1995 | Elspeth Cameron | Earle Birney: A Life | Winner |
| 1995 | Lois Simmie and Cynthia Nugent | Mister Got to Go | Finalist |
| 1995 | Ulli Stelzer and Robert Davidson | Eagle Transforming: The Art of Robert Davidson | Finalist |
| 1996 | Wayson Choy | The Jade Peony | Winner |
| 1996 | Grant Buday | Monday Night Man | Finalist |
| 1996 | Robert A. J. McDonald | Making Vancouver: Class, Status & Social Boundaries 1863-1913 | Finalist |
| 1997 | Rhodri Windsor Liscombe | The New Spirit: Modern Architecture in Vancouver, 1938-1963 | Winner |
| 1997 | John A. Cherrington | Vancouver at the Dawn: A Turn-of-the-Century Portrait | Finalist |
| 1997 | Fred Thirkell and Bob Scullion | Postcards from the Past: Edwardian Images of Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley | Finalist |
| 1998 | Chuck Davis | The Greater Vancouver Book: An Urban Encyclopaedia | Winner |
| 1998 | Betty O'Keefe and Ian Macdonald | The Mulligan Affair: Top Cop on the Take | Finalist |
| 1998 | Carmen Rodríguez | And a Body to Remember With | Finalist |
| 1999 | Bud Osborn | Keys to Kingdoms | Winner |
| 1999 | Shawn Blore and the editors of Vancouver Magazine | Vancouver: Secrets of the City | Finalist |
| 1999 | Grant Buday | White Lung | Finalist |
| 2000 | Lilia D'Acres and Donald Luxton | Lions Gate | Winner |
| 2000 | Christine Allen and Collin Varner | Gardens of Vancouver | Finalist |
| 2000 | Wayson Choy | Paper Shadows: A Chinatown Childhood | Finalist |
| 2000 | Wing Chung Ng | The Chinese in Vancouver: The Pursuit of Identity and Power, 1945-80 | Finalist |
| 2001 | Madeleine Thien | Simple Recipes | Winner |
| 2001 | Douglas Coupland | City of Glass: Douglas Coupland's Vancouver | Finalist |
| 2001 | Timothy Taylor | Stanley Park | Finalist |
| 2001 | Gary Wyatt (ed.) | Susan Point: Coast Salish Artist | Finalist |
| 2002 | Keith Carlson | A Sto:lo-Coast Salish Historical Atlas | Winner |
| 2002 | Doreen Armitage | Burrard Inlet: A History | Finalist |
| 2002 | Bart Campbell | The Door is Open: Memoir of a Soup Kitchen Volunteer | Finalist |
| 2002 | Cynthia Flood | Making a Stone of the Heart | Finalist |
| 2003 | Lincoln Clarkes, Ken Dietrich-Campbell, Patricia Canning and Elaine Allan | Heroines | Winner |
| 2003 | Reid Shier (ed.) | Stan Douglas: Every Building on 100 Block West Hastings | Winner |
| 2003 | John J. Clague and Bob Turner | Vancouver, City on the Edge: Living with a Dynamic Geological Landscape | Finalist |
| 2003 | Fiona Tinwei Lam | Intimate Distances | Finalist |
| 2004 | Daniel Francis | L.D.: Mayor Louis Taylor and the Rise of Vancouver | Winner |
| 2004 | Annabel Lyon | The Best Thing for You | Finalist |
| 2004 | Paul Yee | The Bone Collector's Son | Finalist |
| 2004 | Caroline Adderson | Sitting Practice | Honourable mention |
| 2004 | John Punter | The Vancouver Achievement: Urban Planning and Design | Honourable mention |
| 2004 | Maggie de Vries | Missing Sarah: A Vancouver Woman Remembers Her Vanished Sister | Honourable mention |
| 2005 | Lance Berelowitz | Dream City: Vancouver and the Global Imagination | Winner |
| 2005 | Wayson Choy | All That Matters | Finalist |
| 2005 | Leslie Robertson and Dara Culhane (eds.) | In Plain Sight: Reflections on Life in Downtown Eastside Vancouver | Finalist |
| 2005 | Various | The Vancouver Stories: West Coast Fiction from Canada's Best Writers | Finalist |
| 2006 | Jean Barman | Stanley Park's Secret: The Forgotten Families of Whoi Whoi, Kanaka Ranch, and Brockton Point | Winner |
| 2006 | James P. Delgado | Waterfront: The Illustrated Maritime History of Greater Vancouver | Winner |
| 2006 | Derek Hayes | Historical Atlas of Vancouver and the Lower Fraser Valley | Finalist |
| 2006 | Abraham J. Rogatnick, Ian M. Thom, and Adele Weder | B.C. Binning | Finalist |
| 2007 | Michael Kluckner | Vancouver Remembered | Winner |
| 2007 | Grant Arnold and Michael Turner | Fred Herzog: Vancouver Photographs | Finalist |
| 2007 | Anita Rau Badami | Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? | Finalist |
| 2007 | Brett Josef Grubisic | The Age of Cities | Finalist |
| 2008 | Brad Cran and Gillian Jerome | Hope in Shadows: Stories and Photographs of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside | Winner |
| 2008 | Gary Geddes | Falsework | Finalist |
| 2008 | Eve Lazarus | At Home With History: The Untold Secrets of Greater Vancouver's Heritage Homes | Finalist |
| 2008 | Kaija Pepper | The Man Next Door Dances: The Art of Peter Bingham | Finalist |
| 2009 | Lee Henderson | The Man Game | Winner |
| 2009 | Gabor Maté | In the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts | Finalist |
| 2009 | Meredith Quartermain | Nightmarker | Finalist |
| 2010 | Bruce Grenville and Scott Steedman | Visions of British Columbia | Winner |
| 2010 | George Bowering | The Box | Finalist |
| 2010 | Matt Hern | Common Ground in a Liquid City | Finalist |
| 2010 | Chris MacDonald | A Guidebook to Contemporary Architecture in Vancouver | Finalist |
| 2011 | Michael Christie | The Beggar's Garden: Stories | Winner |
| 2011 | Lynne Bowen | Whoever Gives Us Bread: The Story of Italians in British Columbia | Finalist |
| 2011 | Wayde Compton | After Canaan: Essays on Race, Writing, and Region | Finalist |
| 2011 | Lesley McKnight | Vancouver Kids | Finalist |
| 2012 | W. H. New | YVR | Winner |
| 2012 | John Mikhail Asfour and Elee Kraljii Gardiner (eds.) | V6A: Writing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside | Finalist |
| 2012 | Claudia Cornwall | At the World's Edge: Curt Lang's Vancouver | Finalist |
| 2012 | Ali Kazimi | Undesirables: White Canada and the Komagata Maru | Finalist |
| 2012 | Jen Sookfong Lee | The Better Mother | Finalist |
| 2013 | Amber Dawn | How Poetry Saved My Life: A Hustler's Memoir | Winner |
| 2013 | Jancis M. Andrews | The Ballad of Mrs. Smith | Finalist |
| 2013 | Brad Cran | Ink on Paper | Finalist |
| 2013 | Harold Kalman and Robin Ward | Exploring Vancouver: The Architectural Guide | Finalist |
| 2013 | Sean Kheraj | Inventing Stanley Park: An Environmental History | Finalist |
| 2014 | David Stouck | Arthur Erickson: An Architect's Life | Winner |
| 2014 | Bruce Grierson | What Makes Olga Run? | Finalist |
| 2014 | Doretta Lau | How Does a Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun? | Finalist |
| 2014 | Ashley Little | Anatomy of a Girl Gang: A Novel | Finalist |
| 2014 | Billeh Nickerson | Artificial Cherry | Finalist |
| 2015 | Wayde Compton | The Outer Harbour: Stories | Winner |
| 2015 | Aaron Chapman | Live at the Commodore: The Story of Vancouver's Historic Commodore Ballroom | Finalist |
| 2015 | Bren Simmers | Hastings-Sunrise: Poems | Finalist |
| 2015 | Lois Simmie and Cynthia Nugent | Mister Got To Go, Where Are You? | Finalist |
| 2016 | Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, Karen Duffek, and Tania Willard | Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun: Unceded Territories | Winner |
| 2016 | Wayde Compton and Renée Sarojini Saklikar (eds.) | The Revolving City: 51 Poems and the Stories Behind Them | Finalist |
| 2016 | Lorimer Shenher | That Lonely Section of Hell: The Botched Investigation of a Serial Killer Who Almost Got Away | Finalist |
| 2017 | Carleigh Baker | Bad Endings | Winner |
| 2017 | Grant Arnold, Ian M. Thom, Susan Point, Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse, Thomas Cannell, Myrtle McKay, and William McLennan | Susan Point: Spindle Whorl | Finalist |
| 2017 | Gabrielle Prendergast | Pandas on the Eastside | Finalist |
| 2017 | Sam Wiebe | Invisible Dead | Finalist |
| 2018 | Chelene Knight | Dear Current Occupant | Winner |
| 2018 | Travis Lupick | Fighting for Space: How a Group of Drug Users Transformed One City's Struggle with Addiction | Finalist |
| 2018 | Erín Moure | Sitting Shiva on Minto Avenue, by Toots | Finalist |
| 2018 | Rachel Rose | Sustenance: Writers from BC and Beyond on the Subject of Food | Finalist |
| 2019 | Robert Watt and Susan Point | People among the People: The public art of Susan Point | Winner |
| 2019 | Phillip Huynh | The Forbidden Purple City | Finalist |
| 2019 | Eve Lazarus | Murder by Milkshake: An Astonishing True Story of Adultery, Arsenic, and a Charismatic Killer | Finalist |
| 2019 | Susin Nielsen | No Fixed Address | Finalist |
| 2019 | Shazia Hafiz Ramji | Port of Being | Finalist |
| 2020 | Catherine B. Clement | Chinatown Through a Wide Lens: The Hidden Photographs of Yucho Chow | Winner |
| 2020 | Francine Cunningham | on/me | Finalist |
| 2020 | Alex Leslie | Vancouver for Beginners | Finalist |
| 2021 | Michelle Good | Five Little Indians | Winner |
| 2021 | Joseph Dandurand | The East Side of It All | Finalist |
| 2021 | Danny Ramadan and Anna Bron | Salma the Syrian Chef | Finalist |
| 2021 | Marlene Yuen | Ho Sun Hing Printers | Honourable mention |
| 2022 | Karen Duffek, Bill McLennan, and Jordan Wilson | Where the Power Is: Indigenous Perspectives on Northwest Coast Art | Winner |
| 2022 | Meghan Bell | Erase and Rewind | Finalist |
| 2022 | Henry Doyle | No Shelter | Finalist |
| 2022 | Grace Eiko Thomson | Chiru Sakura: Falling Cherry Blossoms | Finalist |
| 2022 | Paul Wong | Debbie Cheung & Christopher Lee, Occupying Chinatown | Finalist |
| 2023 | Chelene Knight | Junie | Winner |
| 2023 | Evelyn Lau | Cactus Gardens | Finalist |
| 2023 | Michele Assarasakorn, Nathan Fairbairn | PAWS: Mindy Makes Some Space | Finalist |
| 2023 | Danny Ramadan | The Foghorn Echoes | Finalist |
| 2023 | Tara McGuire | Holden After and Before: Love Letter for a Son Lost to Overdose | Finalist |
| 2023 | Jan Wade, Deanna Bowen, Wayde Compton, Daina Augaitis, Siobhan McCracken Nixon | Jan Wade: Soul Power | Finalist |
| 2024 | Henry Tsang | White Riot: The 1907 Anti-Asian Riots in Vancouver | Winner |
| 2024 | C. A. Tanaka | Baby Drag Queen | Finalist |
| 2024 | Jen Sookfong Lee | Superfan: How Pop Culture Broke My Heart | Finalist |
| 2024 | Rueben George, Michael Simpson | It Stops Here: Standing Up for Our Lands, Our Waters, and Our People | Finalist |
| 2024 | Joni Low, Jeff O'Brien, editors, plus numerous authors | What Are Our Supports? | Finalist |