The Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California’s California Book Awards has selected this year’s finalists for 2025
SAN FRANCISCO (April 2) — The Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California’s California Book Awards has selected this year’s finalists for 2025. One of the oldest and most distinguished literary award programs in the nation has chosen 28 outstanding books in six categories, out of hundreds of titles submitted. From these finalists the book award jury will choose Gold and Silver Medal award winners to be announced in June 2025.
“The 2025 nominees again demonstrate the astonishing verve and talent of authors who call California home.” commented Award Jury Chair Gravity Goldberg. “Readers of this year’s finalists can expect to encounter books sparkling with curiosity, wit and insight that discern and illuminate the issues on the minds of Californians, from the humorous to the heartbreaking.”
This year’s Fiction nominees include a retelling of Twain’s classic, Huckleberry Finn, giving new agency to the enslaved Jim, or a novel chronicling an LA artist’s quixotic response and creative outburst to the onset of perimenopause. In another, a spy-for-hire is instructed to sabotage the activities of a French eco-environmental bloc. Nominees for the First Fiction category include a story collection whose transnational characters undergo absurdist and surreal life twists as well as the based-on-a-true-story account of an Ukrainian WWII veteran who hides a secret from his family for more than 50 years. Climate change and its consequences drive many of the researched books in the Non-Fiction category, from the growing peril of climate disaster-driven global and domestic migration, to how the industrialization of artificial cold has transformed our eating and shopping habits. Young Adult nominees include a story about two sisters who aim to solve a murder-mystery in noir-inflected 1930’s Chinatown and a multi-generational tale of Filipino American boys grappling with identity and father-son relationships. In the nominees for Juvenile Fiction, searches for self and homeland, family and friendship as well as mischievous classroom pets, are among the many present themes. Poetry finalists encompass ruminations on sacred spaces, divine urbanism and are set in locations as disparate as Puritan cemeteries to baseball stadiums.
The California Book Awards jury is made up of published authors, award-winning editors, librarians and professors who spend six months reading books submitted by publishers both large and small from all over the nation. “We read with enthusiasm and attention,” Goldberg said, “and experience so many wonderful books that it's never easy to narrow it down to the finalists. The very best titles are chosen as our finalists, and then from those we choose the Gold and Silver medal winners we will announce later this spring.”
History
Since 1931, the California Book Awards have honored the exceptional literary merit of California writers and publishers. Each year a jury considers hundreds of books from around the state in search of the very best in literary achievement. Eligible books must be written while the author is a resident in California and must be published during the year under consideration.
The California Book Awards have often been on the vanguard, honoring previously unknown authors who go on to garner national acclaim. John Steinbeck received three gold medals — for Tortilla Flat in 1935, In Dubious Battle in 1936 and The Grapes of Wrath in 1939. Recent award winners include Rachel Kushner, Susan Orlean, David Treuer, Morgan Parker, and Steph Cha.
Founded in 1903, Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California is the nation’s oldest and largest public affairs forum. The Club hosts speeches, debates and discussions on topics of regional, national and international interest. It has 2 nationally syndicated weekly radio programs that air on a combined 300 radio stations, and it produces hundreds of videos and podcasts each year.
94th ANNUAL FINALISTS
FICTION
James by Percival Everett, Doubleday • All Fours by Miranda July, Riverhead Books • Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner, Simon & Schuster • Colored Television by Danzy Senna, Riverhead Books
FIRST FICTION
There is a Rio Grande in Heaven by Ruben Reyes, Jr., Mariner Books • Your Presence is Mandatory by Sasha Vasilyuk, Bloomsbury Publishing • Beautiful Days by Zach Williams, Doubleday
NONFICTION
When We Sold God’s Eye: Diamonds, Murder, and a Clash of Worlds in the Amazon by Alex Cuadros, Hachette Book Groupm • Twelve Trees: The Deep Roots of Our Future by Daniel Lewis, Farrar, Straus & Giroux • On The Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America by Abrahm Lustgarten, Farrar, Straus & Giroux • A Map of Future Ruins: On Borders and Belonging by Lauren Markham, Riverhead Books • Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves by Nicola Twilley, Penguin Press
POETRY
Theophanies by Sarah Ghazal Ali, Alice James Books • With My Back to the World by Victoria Chang, Farrar, Straus & Giroux • Softly Undercover by Hanae Jonas, Mad Creek Books • Phosphene by Brandon Logans, Black Lawrence Press • Ward Toward by Cindy Juyoung Ok, Yale University Press • Querida by Nathan Xavier Osorio, University of Pittsburgh Press
YOUNG ADULT
Sheine Lende: A Prequel to Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger and Rovina Cai Levine, Querido • Kill Her Twice by Stacey Lee, G.P. Putnam’s & Sons • When the World Tips Over by Jandy Nelson, Dial Books • Lunar New Year Love Story by Gene Luen Yang and LeUyen Pham, First Second • Everything We Never Had by Randy Ribay, Kokila
JUVENILE
Stella and Marigold by Annie Barrows and Sophie Blackall, Chronicle Books • The First Week of School by Drew Beckmeyer, Atheneum Books for Young Readers • Sourgrass by Hope Lim and Shahrzad Maydani, Beach Lane Books • A Map for Falasteen: A Palestinian Child’s Search for Home by Maysa Odeh and Aliaa Betawi, Henry Holt and Company • Pearl by Sherri L Smith and Christine Norrie, Graphix
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