The American Booksellers Association [this week] announced the finalists for its inaugural Indies Choice Book Awards, which replace the Book Sense Book of the Year Awards (the Abbys). There are seven categories—Best Indie Buzz book (fiction), Best Conversation Starter (nonfiction), Best Author Discovery (debut), Best New Picture Book, Best YA Buzz Book, Most Engaging Author, and Picture Book Hall of Fame—and voting is now open to owners and staff at all ABA member bookstores. The ABA is encouraging booksellers to vote electronically at bookweb.org/icba; however, a paper ballot is also available. Ballots must be submitted by March 31; paper ballots may be returned via fax or mail to be received by April 7. The winners will be announced in late April and will be honored at an awards ceremony at ABA's Celebration of Bookselling Luncheon at BEA.
The 2009 Indies Choice Book Awards finalists are:
Best Indie Buzz Book (Fiction)
City of Thieves by David Benioff (Viking)
The Given Day by Dennis Lehane (Morrow)
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows (Dial)
Netherland by Joseph O'Neill (Pantheon)
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks (Viking)
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri (Knopf)
Best Conversation Starter (Nonfiction)
American Buffalo by Steven Rinella (Spiegel & Grau)
The Forever War by Dexter Filkins (Knopf)
Hurry Down Sunshine by Michael Greenberg (Other Press)
A Voyage Long and Strange by Tony Horwitz (Holt)
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami (Knopf)
The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell (Riverhead)
Best Author Discovery (Debut)
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith (Grand Central)
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (Knopf)
Mudbound by Hillary Jordan (Algonquin)
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski (Ecco)
The Story of Forgetting by Stefan Merrill Block (Random House)
White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (Free Press)
Best Indie Young Adult Buzz Book (Fiction)
Graceling by Kristin Cashore (HMH)
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins)
Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic)
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (Tor)
My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger (Dial)
Savvy by Ingrid Law (Dial)
Best New Picture Book
Bats at the Library by Brian Lies (Houghton Mifflin)
Louise, the Adventures of a Chicken by Kate DiCamillo & Harry Bliss (HarperCollins)
Monkey and Me by Emily Gravett (Simon & Schuster)
The Pout Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen & Dan Hanna (FSG)
Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes by Mem Fox & Helen Oxenbury (Harcourt)
Wave by Suzi Lee (Chronicle)
Most Engaging Author
Sherman Alexie
Michael Chabon
Ann Patchett
John Scieszka
David Sedaris
Terry Tempest Williams
Picture Book Hall of Fame
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst & Ray Cruz (Atheneum)
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault & Lois Ehlert (Simon & Schuster)
Corduroy by Don Freeman (Viking)
Curious George by H.A. Rey (Houghton Mifflin)
Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems (Hyperion)
Goodnight Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann (Putnam)
The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper (Grosset & Dunlap/Philomel)
Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans (Viking)
Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey (Viking)
Napping House by Audrey Wood (Harcourt)
Stellaluna by Janelle Cannon (Harcourt)
The Story of Ferdinand the Bull by Munro Leaf & Robert Lawson (Viking)
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (HarperCollins)
