Awards, Awards, and More Awards at BEA

Among the gala festivities held at BookExpo America (BEA) were three recognizing the best of the best ...among independent handselling favorites, audiobooks, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered publishing.

The Book Sense Book of the Year Awards, honoring independent booksellers' handselling favorites appearing on the Book Sense Picks (formerly the Book Sense 76) during the past year, were presented at ABA's eighth Annual Celebration of Bookselling, sponsored by The Atlantic Monthly. The event, which has grown to become a gathering that renews and showcases the links of collegiality both among booksellers and between booksellers and publishers, was hosted by Jane Pauley, whose forthcoming book, Skywriting: A Life Out of the Blue, will be published by Random House.

Always a convivial evening, this year it was also an extremely moving one, as the event was the venue for the presentation of the Publishers Weekly Bookseller of the Year Award to A. David Schwartz of the Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops, who was gravely ill with cancer and unable to attend. (To read more about David Schwartz, who died on Monday, June 7, click here.) Eighty members of the Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops staff came to the Celebration by bus from Milwaukee and waited together near the stage of the McCormick Place Grand Ballroom, where Mary McCarthy, general manager of the Schwartz Bookshops, accepted the award on his behalf as the room rose in a standing ovation.

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Doubleday) was named the winner of the 2004 Book Sense Book of the Year Award in the Adult Fiction category. Although no longer in need of handselling, the bestselling potential of The Da Vinci Code was recognized by independents early on. The novel was a Top Ten March/April Book Sense 76 Pick in the month it was published.

Other winners were:

Adult Nonfiction:Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi (Random House)

Paperback:The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (Penguin)

Children's Illustrated:How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long and illustrated by David Shannon (Harcourt)

Children's Literature:Eragon: The Inheritance, Book I by Christopher Paolini (Knopf)

All of the Book Sense Book of the Year finalists and winners received reading-related gifts from Book Sense marketing partner, Levenger.

At a black-tie gala in Chicago on June 4, the Audio Publishers Association (APA) recognized announced the winners of the Ninth Annual Audie Awards. The award ceremony held in the Winter Garden Room at the Harold Washington Public Library Center in Chicago honored excellence in audio publishing in 26 categories. And, for the first time, APA presented the Audiobook of the Year Award at the Audie ceremony. The five finalists for Audiobook of the Year were The Complete Arkangel Shakespeare, David Sedaris Live at Carnegie Hall, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, The John Cheever Collection, and A Patriot's Handbook.

Audiobook of the Year: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, byJ.K. Rowling, read by Jim Dale (Listening Library)

Fiction, Abridged: Brick Lane,byMonica Ali, read by Elizabeth Sastre (HighBridge Audio)

Fiction, Unabridged: All Over Creation,byRuth Ozeki, read by Anna Fields (Blackstone Audiobooks)

Mystery (Fiction): Lost Light,byMichael Connelly, read by Len Cariou (Time Warner AudioBooks & Hyperion Audiobooks)

Classic: East of Eden,byJohn Steinbeck, read by Richard Poe (Recorded Books, LLC)

Nonfiction, Abridged: The Opposite of Fate,byAmy Tan, read by Amy Tan (Brilliance Audio)

Nonfiction, Unabridged: Charlie Wilson's War, byGeorge Crile, read by Christopher Lane (Blackstone Audiobooks)

Personal Development/Motivational: The Ultimate Weight Solution: The 7 Keys to Weight Loss Freedom, by Dr. Phil McGraw, read by Dr. Phil McGraw (Simon & Schuster Audio)

Biography/Memoir: The Nazi Officer's Wife, byEdith Hahn Beer with Susan Dworkin, read by Barbara Rosenblat (Jewish Contemporary Classics, Inc.)

Science Fiction: Monstrous Regiment,byTerry Pratchett, read by Stephen Briggs (Harper Audio)

Children's Titles for Ages Up to 8: Chato and the Party Animals, byGary Soto, read by Luis Guzman (Weston Woods Studios)

Children's Titles for Ages 8+: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, byJ.K. Rowling, read by Jim Dale (Listening Library)

For the complete list of Audie winners, go to www.audiopub.org.

The Lambda Literary Foundation announced the winners of the 16th Annual Lambda Literary Awards, or "Lammies," honoring a diverse range of distinguished voices in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (GLBT) publishing, at festive ceremony at the Chicago Mart Plaza on Thursday, June 3.

Also honored were bestselling author E. Lynn Harris, who received the Lambda Literary Foundation Bridge Builder Award, recognizing his career achievements and his memoir, What Becomes of the Broken Hearted? (Doubleday/Anchor); Stanford University professor Terry Castle, recipient of the Editor's Choice Award for The Literature of Lesbianism (Columbia University Press); and Amazon Bookstore Cooperative in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which was presented with the Pioneer Award, recognizing it as the nation's first feminist bookstore.

Children, Young Adult: Boy Meets Boy, by David Levithan. (Knopf Books for Young Readers)

Gay Men's Fiction: Lives of the Circus Animals, by Christopher Bram (William Morrow)

Gay Men's Mystery: Blind Eye, by John Morgan Wilson (St. Martin's)

Gay Men's Poetry (tie): Middle Earth, by Henri Cole (FSG) and Sky Lounge, by Mark Bibbins (Graywolf Press)

Lesbian Fiction: Southland, by Nina Revoyr (Akashic Books)

Lesbian Mystery: Damn Straight, by Elizabeth Sims (Alyson Publications)

Lesbian Poetry: The Dirt She Ate, by Minnie Bruce Pratt (University of Pittsburgh Press)

LGBT Biography:Beautiful Shadow, by Andrew Wilson (Bloomsbury)

LGBT Drama: Prok by Brian Drader (Scirocco Drama)

LGBT Erotica: Best Lesbian Erotica 2004, Tristan Taormino, ed. (Cleis Press)

LGBT Fiction Anthology: Pulp Friction, edited by Michael Bronski (St. Martin's)

LGBT Humor: Dykes and Sundry Other Carbon-Based Life-forms to Watch Out For, by Alison Bechdel. (Alyson Publications)

LGBT Memoir/Autobiography: Naked in the Promised Land, by Lillian Faderman (Houghton Mifflin)

LGBT Nonfiction Anthology:Queer Crips, Bob Guter and Robert Killacky, ed. (Harrington Park Press)

LGBT Studies: Time on Two Crosses, edited by Devon Carbado and Donald Weise (Cleis Press)

Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror: Necrologue, edited by Helen Sandler. (Diva Books)

Transgender: She's Not There, by Jennifer Finney Boylan (Broadway Books)

The 2004 Lambda Literary Awards were sponsored by the American Booksellers Association, The Haworth Press, The Pilgrim Press, Bookazine, and Books to Watch Out For.