Since 1980, the Los Angeles Times has awarded a set of annual book prizes. The Prizes "currently have nine single-title categories: biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction (the Art Seidenbaum Award added in 1991), history, mystery/thriller (category added in 2000), poetry, science and technology (category added in 1989), and young adult fiction (category added in 1998). In addition, the Robert Kirsch Award is presented annually to a living author with a substantial connection to the American West, whose contribution to American letters deserves special recognition.". It is named in honor of Robert Kirsch, whose idea became the inspiration for the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, was the newspaper’s book critic from 1952 until his death in 1980.
The Book Prize program was founded by the late Art Seidenbaum, a Los Angeles Times book editor from 1978 to 1985; an award named after him was added a year after his death in 1990. Works are eligible during the year of their first US publication in English, though English does not have to be the original language of the work. The author of each winning book and the Kirsch Award recipient receives a citation and $1,000. The prizes are presented the day before the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.
Famous quotes containing the words los angeles, los, angeles, times, book and/or prize:
“Los Angeles is a Yukon for crime-story writers.”
—Christina Stead (1902–1983)
“There are two modes of transport in Los Angeles: car and ambulance. Visitors who wish to remain inconspicuous are advised to choose the latter”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1951)
“In Washington, the first thing people tell you is what their job is. In Los Angeles you learn their star sign. In Houston you’re told how rich they are. And in New York they tell you what their rent is.”
—Simon Hoggart (b. 1946)
“All that we did, all that we said or sang
Must come from contact with the soil, from that
Contact everything Antaeus-like grew strong.
We three alone in modern times had brought
Everything down to that sole test again,
Dream of the noble and the beggarman.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“In the Corner Store, near the village center, hangs a large sign reading: ‘After 40 years of credit business, we have closed our book of Sorrow.’”
—For the State of Maine, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Eternall God, O thou that onely art
The sacred Fountain of eternall light,
And blessed Loadstone of my better part;
O thou my heart’s desire, my soul’s delight,
Reflect upon my soul, and touch my heart,
And then my heart shall prize no good above thee;
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And then my trembling thoughts shall never start
From thy commands, or swerve the least degree,
Or once presume to move, but as they move in thee.”
—Francis Quarles (1592–1644)