The 2025 L.A. Times Book Prizes Finalists and Honorees

10 hours ago 2

This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

This week, the L.A. Times has announced their 46th annual Book Prizes. Among the honorees and finalists are a wide range of authors, literary advocates, and books across an array of genres. Winners will be announced Friday, April 17 at USC’s Bovard Auditorium, right before the 31st annual a prologue to the 31st annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, which runs April 18-19.

Among the announced winners are Amy Tan, who will receive the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement. We Need Diverse Books will take home the Innovator’s Award, which honors efforts that help bring storytelling into the future. The Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose will be awarded to Adam Ross for his book Playworld.

The L.A. Times Book Prizes have 61 finalists competing across 13 different categories. Here’s a look at some of the categories and their finalists.

The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction Finalists:

Plum by Andy Anderegg
Ibis: A Novel by Justin Haynes
Idle Grounds: A Novel by Krystelle Bamford
Hunchback: A Novel by Saou Ichikawa translated by Polly Barton
Dominion: A Novel by Addie E. Citchens

Today In Books

Achievement in Audiobook Production, Presented by Audible

How to Lose Your Mother by Molly Jong-Fast (Narrator), Matie Argiropoulos (Producer)
Black in Blues by Imani Perry (Narrator), Suzanne Mitchell (Producer)
People Like Us by Jason Mott, Ronald Peet, and JD Jackson (Narrators), Diane McKiernan (Producer)
The Correspondent by Maggi-Meg Reed, Jane Oppenheimer, Carly Robins, Jeff Ebner, David Pittu, Chris Andrew Ciulla, Mark Bramhall, Petrea Burchard, Robert Petkoff, Kimberly Farr, Cerris Morgan-Moyer, Peter Ganim, Jade Wheeler, Steve West, and Jim Seybert (Narrators), Kelly Gildea (Producer)
The Emperor of Gladness by James Aaron Oh (Narrator), Linda Korn (Producer)

Fiction