The winners for the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association 2024 Northwest Book Awards have been announced.
The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association (PNBA) is a non-profit association of independent bookstores from five Northwest states: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska. Since 1965, the annual Book Awards have recognized such luminary figures in Northwest literature as Ivan Doig, Ursula K. Le Guin, David James Duncan, Cheryl Strayed, Molly Gloss, Brian Doyle, Chuck Palahniuk, and Pete Fromm. Many of these authors were honored by PNBA before they received national attention. A history of past winners of the Pacific Northwest Book Award can be viewed on the Pacific Northwest Book Awards homepage. Nwbooklovers.org has coverage of books from past shortlists as well as coverage of and essays from past award winners.
PNBA’s Awards Committee is comprised of nine volunteer booksellers from throughout our member region. This year’s Committee considered nominated titles published during 2023 for a 2024 award. Here is the shortlist, which was announced in November.
Original essays by winning authors will be published on this blog over the next several weeks, beginning this week.
Register now and join your fellow Northwest Book Lovers for an online celebration of the award winners on February 8, 2024 6 pm PST on Zoom!
Cascadia Field Guide
Art | Ecology | Poetry
Editors CMarie Fuhrman and Derek Sheffield (in partnership with editor Elizabeth Bradfield)
Leavenworth, WA & McCall, ID
Showcasing the work of 140 creators of art and writing, this project is a collective love song to the wonder, nature, and history of the land in which we live The editorial team captured the magic of a region that is so much more than this simple title might allude.
Mountaineers Books
Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World
Naomi Klein
Sunshine Coast, BC
Klein’s exploration of the parallel strategies deployed by political actors across the ideological spectrum reveals many unsettling truths about our contemporary discourse. In an era defined by disinformation and divisions, the book makes a compelling argument for reevaluating our assumptions, confronting the disquieting similarities in our political exchange, and reimagining the strategies needed to protect our democratic values. An indispensable read for anyone invested in preserving the future of Democracy.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
The Lost Journals of Sacajewea
Debra Magpie Earling
Missoula, MT
This novel subverts the common narrative of the Lewis and Clark Expedition by shifting the focus to the indigenous female perspective, largely unexplored by historians and fiction writers alike. Earling does not shy from the horrors of the time, nor does she coddle the reader with comfortable imaginings of Sacajewea’s experience. This is an important book, allowing a viewpoint that needs to be considered within the broader historical review of this continent.
Milkweed Editions
Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City: A Memoir
Jane Wong
Seattle, WA
By turns fierce and tender, an incisive examination of love, family, and obligation. Moving back and forth through time, Wong’s paean to mothers, daughters, and broken hearts invites readers to a greater understanding of what it’s like to be loved and othered in equal measure.
Tin House
Weird Rules to Follow
Kim Spencer
Vancouver, BC
Based on the author’s own experiences, a Tsimshian tween narrates her close connections to family and the power of friendship—and the pain when it fades—in this vibrant and moving story set in 1980s northern British Columbia. As Mia increasingly recognizes class and cultural differences and the racism and internalized shame that result, the snapshot-like short chapters beautifully capture a place and time and a girl coming of age.
Orca Book Publishers
“You Just Need to Lose Weight” and 19th Other Myths about Fat People
Aubrey Gordon
Portland, OR
With top-notch scientific research, personal anecdotes, and engaging style, Gordon presents common and damaging myths about fatness, then chapter by chapter knocks them down. In response, she provides checklists and action items to help frame and combat the reader’s own anti-fat biases. A valuable read and resource to return to again and again.
Beacon Press
Special Recognition:
PNBA would also like to pay tribute to the life and works of late author and artist Chandler O’Leary, whose books included her 2023 bestseller On Island Time, The Best Coast, and Dead Feminists, a 2018 PNBA Award Winner.