The American Booksellers Association (ABA) has named the winners of the first Indies Choice Book Awards for 2009. This is an honour given to reflect the spirit of independent bookstores — a group that’s been diminishing in recent years because of internet book-buying, ebooks, and other changes in the industry.
Although this is the “first” of these awards, the Indies Choice did have a precursor: the Book Sense Book of the Year Awards. But the ABA wanted to institute new categories and a broader range, so they made the change.
And the winnahs are…
- Best Indie Book Buzz (Fiction): The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (MaryAnn Shaffer and Annie Barrows; Dial Press)
- Best Conversation Starter (Nonfiction): The Wordy Shipmates (Sarah Vowell; Riverhead)
- Best Author Discovery: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (David Wroblewski; Ecco)
- Best Indie Young Adult Buzz Book (Fiction): The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman; HarperCollins)
- Best New Picture Book: Bats at the Library (Brian Lies; Houghton Mifflin)
- Most Engaging Author: Sherman Alexie
The awards will be handed out at the Celebration of Bookselling Luncheon (for owners and staff at all ABA member stores) on Friday, May 29, at the Javits Convention Center in New York.
Check the link as well for the list of the additional Indies Choice Book Awards honor recipients in each of the above categories.
The more we can do to promote and support independent bookstores, the better the book and publishing world will be!
