Amy Tan, Ekow Eshun and Michael Connelly among L.A. Times Book Prize honorees and finalists

The finalists and honorees for the 46th Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were announced today. The awards recognize outstanding literary achievements across 13 categories, ranging from mystery and sci-fi to biography and graphic novels. Winners will be revealed on April 17.

Major Individual Honorees

• Robert Kirsch Award (Lifetime Achievement): Amy Tan. The Joy Luck Club author is being honored for her body of work exploring multicultural identity and the immigrant experience.
• Innovator’s Award: We Need Diverse Books. Recognized for their massive impact on the industry; since 2014, children’s books by authors of color in the U.S. have risen from 8% to 47%.
• The Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose: Adam Ross for his novel Playworld.

2026 CATEGORY FINALISTS

The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction

• Andy Anderegg, Plum
• Krystelle Bamford, Idle Grounds: A Novel
• Addie E. Citchens, Dominion: A Novel
• Justin Haynes, Ibis: A Novel
• Saou Ichikawa (trans. Polly Barton), Hunchback: A Novel

Fiction

• Tod Goldberg, Only Way Out: A Novel
• Stephen Graham Jones, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
• Mia McKenzie, These Heathens: A Novel
• Andrés Felipe Solano (trans. Will Vanderhyden), Gloria: A Novel
• Bryan Washington, Palaver: A Novel

Mystery/Thriller

• Megan Abbott, El Dorado Drive
• Ace Atkins, Everybody Wants to Rule the World: A Novel
• Lou Berney, Crooks: A Novel About Crime and Family
• Michael Connelly, The Proving Ground: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel
• S.A. Cosby, King of Ashes: A Novel

Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction

• Stephen Graham Jones, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
• Jordan Kurella, The Death of Mountains
• Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author: A Novel
• Adam Oyebanji, Esperance
• Silvia Park, Luminous: A Novel

Biography

• Joe Dunthorne, Children of Radium: A Buried Inheritance
• Ekow Eshun, The Strangers: Five Extraordinary Black Men and the Worlds That Made Them
• Ruth Franklin, The Many Lives of Anne Frank
• Beth Macy, Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America
• Amanda Vaill, Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution

History

• Char Adams, Black-Owned: The Revolutionary Life of the Black Bookstore
• Bench Ansfield, Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City
• Jennifer Clapp, Titans of Industrial Agriculture
• Eli Erlick, Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950
• Aaron G. Fountain Jr., High School Students Unite!

Science & Technology

• Mariah Blake, They Poisoned the World
• Peter Brannen, The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything
• Karen Hao, Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI
• Laura Poppick, Strata: Stories from Deep Time
• Jordan Thomas, When It All Burns

Graphic Novel/Comics

• Eagle Valiant Brosi, Black Cohosh
• Jaime Hernandez, Life Drawing: A Love and Rockets Collection
• Michael D. Kennedy, Milk White Steed
• Lee Lai, Cannon
• Carol Tyler, The Ephemerata

Poetry

• Gabrielle Calvocoressi, The New Economy
• Chet’la Sebree, Blue Opening: Poems
• Richard Siken, I Do Know Some Things
• Devon Walker-Figueroa, Lazarus Species: Poems
• Allison Benis White, A Magnificent Loneliness

Young Adult Literature

• K. Ancrum, The Corruption of Hollis Brown
• Idris Goodwin, King of the Neuro Verse
• Jamie Jo Hoang, My Mother, the Mermaid Chaser
• Trung Le Nguyen, Angelica and the Bear Prince
• Hannah V. Sawyerr, Truth Is: A Novel in Verse

Achievement in Audiobook Production

• How to Lose Your Mother (Molly Jong-Fast, Matie Argiropoulos)
• People Like Us: A Novel (Jason Mott, Ronald Peet, JD Jackson, Diane McKiernan)
• The Emperor of Gladness: A Novel (James Aaron Oh, Linda Korn)
• Black in Blues (Imani Perry, Suzanne Mitchell)
• The Correspondent: A Novel (Ensemble cast, Kelly Gildea)

What do y'all think of the lists? Any snubs you've noticed or favorites you're rooting for?