2004 Book Sense Book of the Year Finalists Announced

The American Booksellers Association has announced the finalists for the 2004 Book Sense Book of the Year Awards. The finalists in five categories -- Adult Fiction, Adult Nonfiction, Children's Literature, Children's Illustrated, and Paperback -- were nominated by ABA bookstore members from titles appearing on the Book Sense 76 lists during the past year.

The winners will be announced at the Celebration of Bookselling, on Friday, June 4, at this year's BookExpo America, to be held at Chicago's McCormick Place Convention Center.

Book Sense Book of the Year ballots are being mailed to all ABA bookstore members at the end of this week. The tabulation of votes will be handled by KPMG, and the results will be kept secret until the June 4 event. (For more about the balloting process, click here.)

The finalists, listed in alphabetical order by title in each category, are:

ADULT FICTION

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (Doubleday)
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Doubleday)
The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich (HarperCollins)
Mrs. Kimble by Jennifer Haigh (Morrow)
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (MacAdam/Cage)

ADULT NONFICTION

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson (Crown)
Flyboys: A True Story of Courage by James Bradley (Little, Brown)
Michelangelo & The Pope's Ceiling by Ross King (Walker)
Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder (Random House)
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi (Random House)

CHILDREN'S LITERATURE

Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code (Book 3) by Eoin Colfer (Miramax)
Eragon: The Inheritance, Book I by Christopher Paolini (Knopf)
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke (Chicken House/Scholastic)
The Second Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares (Delacorte)
The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo; illus. by Timothy Basil Ering (Candlewick)

CHILDREN'S ILLUSTRATED

Diary of a Wombat by Jackie French; illus. by Bruce Whatley (Clarion Books)
Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin; illus. by Harry Bliss (Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins)
How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long; illus. by David Shannon (Harcourt)
Old Turtle and the Broken Truth by Douglas Wood; illus. by Jon J. Muth (Scholastic)
Olivia ... and the Missing Toy by Ian Falconer (Atheneum)

PAPERBACK

Atonement by Ian McEwan (Anchor)
The Dive From Clausen's Pier by Ann Packer (Vintage)
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore (Perennial)
Life of Pi by Yann Martel (Harvest)
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (Penguin)

Earlier this year, booksellers at ABA member bookstores voted to select the Best of Book Sense -- the top 15 adult titles and the top 10 children's titles from booksellers' recommendations to the Book Sense 76 since the lists launched in September 1999. Look for an announcement of the titles selected by booksellers as the Best of Book Sense in next week's issue of BTW.