Top Books From Book Awards Lists

Fiction–
The End of the Straight and Narrow
by
David McGlynn

McGlynn’s
superlatively crafted, deeply
sympathetic debut story collection traces the spiritual agonies of
Christians
trying to make sense of their faith within the vicissitudes of human
nature.

Non-Fiction–
Bargaining for Eden: the fight for the
last Open Spaces in America
by Stephen Trimble

Beginning
with an Olympic ski race in northern Utah, this heartfelt book takes a
penetrating look at the battles raging over the land–and the soul–of
the
American West. Bargaining for Eden investigates
the high-profile story
of a reclusive billionaire who worked relentlessly to acquire public
land for
his ski resort and to host the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. Into
this mix,
Trimble weaves the personal story of how he, a lifelong
environmentalist,
ironically became a landowner and developer himself, and began to
explore the
ethics of ownership anew

Poetry–
Made Flesh by Craig Arnold

Marrying
narrative
precision to lyric ecstasy, the archaic to the avant-garde, these poems
celebrate the fragility of our very selves and “the joy of
self-forgetting,” the acts of surrender that loves asks of us.

Young
Adults–
The
Way He Lived– Emily Wing Smith

Besides
living in the same Mormon community
in Utah, Tabbatha, Adlen, Miles, Claire, Norah and Lissa have something
else in
common: each had a special connection to Joel Espen, who died of
dehydration
after giving away his water during a badly planned Boy Scout expedition.

Children’s
–
Rapunzel’s Revenge
by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale

This
is the tale as you’ve never seen it
before. After using her hair to free herself from her prison tower,
this
Rapunzel ignores the pompous prince and teams up with Jack (of
Beanstalk fame)
in an attempt to free her birth mother and an entire kingdom from the
evil
witch who once moonlighted as her mother.

Fiction-
Let the Great World Spin by
Colum McCann

It’s
August of 1974, a summer “hot and
serious and full of death and betrayal,” and Watergate and the Vietnam
War
make the world feel precarious. A stunned hush pauses the cacophonous
universe
of New York City as a man on a cable walks (repeatedly) between World
Trade
Center towers. This extraordinary, real-life feat by French funambulist
Phillipe Petit becomes the touchstone for stories that briefly submerge
you in
ten varied and intense lives

Non-Fiction–The First Tycoon: the epic life of Cornelius
Vanderbilt by T.J. Stiles

This
is a gripping, groundbreaking
biography of the combative man whose genius and force of will created
modern
capitalism.

Poetry–
Transcendental Studies; A
trilogy by Keith Waldrop

This
is an extended philosophical
meditation on what are, broadly, the major themes of all poetry:
perception,
the imagination, the body, and how the human inner life interacts with
the
larger world.

Young
Peoples Literature–
Claudette
Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose

Based
on extensive interviews with Claudette Colvin and
many others, Phillip Hoose presents the first in-depth account of a
major, yet
little-known, civil rights figure whose story provides a fresh
perspective on
the Montgomery bus protest of 1955–56. Historic figures like
Martin Luther
King, Jr., and Rosa Parks play important roles, but center stage
belongs to the
brave, bookish girl whose two acts of courage were to affect the course
of
American history.

Best
Indie Book Buzz
(Fiction) – the Guernsey Literary and
Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

January
1946: writer Juliet Ashton receives a letter from a stranger, a
founding member
of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. And so begins a
remarkable
tale of the island of Guernsey during the German occupation, and of a
society
as extraordinary as its name.

Best
Conversation Starter
(Non Fiction) the
Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell

Sarah
Vowell explores the Puritans and their journey to
America in The Wordy Shipmates. Even today, America
views itself as a
Puritan nation, but Vowell investigates what that means — and what it
should
mean. What was this great political enterprise all about? Who were
these people
who are considered the philosophical, spiritual, and moral ancestors of
our
nation?

Best
Author Discovery–
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle- by David
Wroblewski

Born
mute, speaking only in sign, Edgar Sawtelle leads
an idyllic life on his family’s farm in remote northern Wisconsin where
they
raise and train an extraordinary breed of dog. But when tragedy
strikes, Edgar
is forced to flee into the vast neighboring wilderness, accompanied by
only
three yearling pups. Struggling for survival, Edgar comes of age in the
wild,
and must face the choice of leaving forever or revealing the terrible
truth
behind what has happened.

Best
Indie Young Adult Buzz Book–
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Nobody
Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal
boy. He would be completely
normal if he didn’t live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and
educated by
ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of
the living
nor of the dead. There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for
a boy.
But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from
the man
Jack—who has already killed Bod’s family.

Most
Engaging Author–
Sherman Alexie

Author
of many books but most notably- The Absolutely
True Diary of a Part time Indian

Sherman
Alexie tells the heartbreaking, hilarious, and
beautifully written story of a young Native American teen as he
attempts to
break free from the life he was destined to live.

American Lion:
Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon
Meacham

Meacham 
offers a lively take on the seventh president’s
White House years. We
get the Indian fighter and hero of New Orleans facing down South
Carolina
radicals’ efforts to nullify federal laws they found unacceptable,
speaking the
words of democracy even if his banking and other policies strengthened
local
oligarchies, and doing nothing to protect southern Indians from their
land-hungry white neighbors.