J.K. Rowling, Gene Luen Yang and Ruth Ozeki Win L.A. Times Book Prizes

Posted on April 14, 2014

The 34th annual Los Angeles Times Book Prize ceremony was held on Friday night at Bovard Auditorium at the University of Southern California. Awards were given for the best books of 2013 in ten different categories. In addition to the book categories, there were two other prizes given. Young adult author and activist John Green won the Innovator's Award. 2013 Robert Kirsch Award was given to novelist, short story author and teacher Susan Straight.

J.K. Rowling won the prize for best Mystery/Thriller: for her novel The Cuckoo�s Calling (Mulholland Books/Little, Brown & Company). Rowling wrote the book under the name Robert Galbraith. Ruth Ozeki won the Fiction Prize for her novel A Tale for the Time Being (Viking). Here are the other winners:

• Biography: Marie Arana, Bolivar: American Liberator (Simon & Schuster)
• Current Interest: Sheri Fink, Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital (Crown)
• The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction: NoViolet Bulawayo, We Need New Names (Reagan Arthur Books)
• Graphic Novel/Comics: Ulli Lust, Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life (Fantagraphics)
• History: Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 (HarperCollins)
• Poetry: Ron Padgett, Collected Poems (Coffee House Press)
• Science & Technology: Alan Weisman, Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth? (Little, Brown & Company)
• Young Adult Literature: Gene Luen Yang, Boxers & Saints (First Second/Macmillan)