Award
California Book Award
94 years tracked (1931–2025), 725 entries total.
The California Book Awards are annual literary awards given to California Writers and Publishers since 1931, sponsored by Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California. Medals and cash prizes are awarded in categories including Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, First Work of Fiction, Californiana, Juvenile Literature, Young Adult Literature, and Notable Contribution to Publishing. More than 400 books are submitted per year, and winners are selected by an independent jury.
2025
A Machine to Move Ocean and Earth
A Map for Falasteen: A Palestinian Child's Search for Home
Everything We Never Had
Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves
James
Terminal Island: Lost Communities on America's Edge
Theophanies
Your Presence is Mandatory
Creation Lake
Twelve Trees: The Deep Roots of Our Future
Ward Toward
2024
Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed
All-Night Pharmacy
Blackouts
California Against the Sea: Visions for Our Vanishing Coastline
KAOS Theory: The Afrokosmic Ark of Ben Caldwell
Mass for Shut-Ins
Orphan Bachelors
The Honey Jar: An Armenian's Escape to Freedom
The Blood Years
2023
2022
2021
A Natural History of the Anza-Borrego Region
A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth
California Exposures
Efrén Divided
How Much of These is God
Private Lessons
Quiet Orient Riot
South to Freedom
Golden Gates
Interior Chinatown
The Black Kids
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
Barbed Wire Baseball
Chief: The Quest for Justice in California
Command and Control
Far Far Away
Scrape the Willow Until it Sings
Seasonal Works with Letter on Fire
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
Farewell Fred Voodoo: A Letter From Haiti
The Boss
2012
A Partial History of Lost Causes
God's Hotel: A Doctor, A Hospital, and A Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine
Masha'allah and Other Stories
Sea and Fog
Second Chance Summer
Sunshine Was Never Enough
The One and Only Ivan
The Orphan Master's Son
Valley of Shadows and Dreams
A Soldier's Secret: The Incredible True Story of Sarah Edmonds, A Civil War Hero
The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele-Bloch Bauer
2011
Ascension
Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World's Richest Museum
Chuckwalla Land: The Riddle of California's Desert
Love and Shame and Love
One Day and One Amazing Morning on Orange Street
Ten Years that Shook the City: San Francisco 1968-1978
The Apothecary
The Barbarian Nurseries
Turn of Mind
The Ecstasy of Influence: Nonfiction, Etc.
2010
A State of Change: Forgotten Landscapes of California
Autobiography of Mark Twain Volume 1
Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History
Grandma's Gloves
I Hotel
Model Home
Mortal Geography
The Lost Books of the Odyssey
The Things a Brother Knows
Suck on the Marrow
The Harvard Psychedelic Club
2009
2008
Asian American Art: A History, 1850-1970
Hallelujah Junction: Composing an American Life
Sleeping it Off in Rapid City: Poems, New & Selected
Telex From Cuba
The End of the Jews
The Legend of a Suicide
The Los Angeles Plaza: Sacred and Contested Space
We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball
White Sands, Red Menace
Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West
Practice
2007
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Chinese Apples
Impressions of the East
Ralph Ellison: A Biography
Reinventing Los Angeles
Sons and Other Flammable Objects
The Yiddish Policeman's Union
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Tote Mädchen lügen nicht
Revolution is Not a Dinner Party
Thirteen Reasons Why
What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848
2006
Artificial Light
Children's Book Press
Enrique's Journey
New and Collected Poems, 1964-2006
Talk, Talk
The Great Black Way
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Wizard of the Crow
A True and Faithful Narrative
Enrique's Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother
Landed
2005
A Thousand Years of Good Prayer
Bury the Chains
Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire Slaves
Europe Central
Niagara River
Nice Big American Baby
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906: How San Francisco Nearly Destroyed Itself
Cloud Chamber
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Terrific
2004
2003
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
Evidence of Things Unseen
Old School
Parasites Like Us
Rising Up and Rising Down
River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West
The City of Ember
The King of California
The Strange Hours Travelers Keep
American Expressionism: Art and Social Change
Just a Minute: A Trickster Tale and Counting Book
2002
Brown: The Last Discovery of America
Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest
High Sierra of California
The Last Good Chance
The Lovely Bones
The Miracle
Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology
American Law in the 20th Century
This Land was Made for You and Me: Woody Guthrie
When Marian Sang: The True Recital of Marion Anderson
2001
American Colonies
Capturing Light: Masterpieces of California Photography, 1850-2000
Edgewater Angels
Haussman, or The Distinction
Highwire Moon
New and Collected Poems: 1931-2001
Notes from a Liar and Her Dog
Splendide Californie! Selections by French Artists of California History 1786-1900
Cool, Calm & Collected: Poems 1960-2001
Notes from a Liar & Her Dog
2000
California Calls You
Our Vietnam
Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner
Selected Poems
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Ice Harvest
The Literature of California Volume 1: Native American Beginnings to 1945
The Royal Family
At the Sign of the Star
Jubal's Wish
1999
Crooked
Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945
Leaving Pico
Oxygen Man
Rush for Riches: Gold Fever and the Making of California
The Artist of the Missing
Little Bo
Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe
The Mercy
The Potato Eaters
1998
1997
Circumnavigation
Creek Walk and Other Stories
Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Le Divorce
Snakes: The Evolution of Mystery in Nature
The Dream Endures: California Enters the 1940s
A Far Rockaway of the Heart
Glenn Gould: The Ecstasy and Tragedy of Genius
The Hired Hand: An African-American Folktale
1996
1995
1994
Catherine, Called Birdy
The Palace Thief
The Unseen Peninsula
The Zoo Where You're Fed to God
Two Eagles/Dos Aguiles
School Girls
Smoky Night
The October Palace
The Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade: Americans in the Spanish Civil War
The Philosopher's Club
1993
Opera in America: A Cultural History
The Arts and Crafts Movement in California: Living the Good Life
The Great Central Valley
Tuscaloosa
Bull Run
Dragon's Gate
Grandfather's Journey
Lost Body
No Way to Build a Ballpark and Other Irreverent Essays in Architecture
1992
Cantora
Josiah Royce: From Grass Valley to Harvard
Napoleon
Red Square
Triumph and Tragedy: A History of the Mexican People
When Nietzsche Wept
A Bowl of Mischief
Chicken Sunday
Days of Obligation: An Argument with my Mexican Father
Earthquake at Dawn
1991
Anne Sexton: A Biography
Farming on the Edge: Saving Family Farms in Marin County, California
Mariette in Ecstasy
Sarah Canary
Tradition and Innovation: A Basket History of the Indians of the Yosemite-Mono Lake Area
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women
Fly Away Home
Jayhawker
Provinces: Poems 1987-91
What Work Is
1990
1989
1988
1987
Bitter Melon: Stories from the Last Rural Chinese Town in America
Chaucer: His Life, His Works, His World
Dryland: Desert of North America
Imagining Argentina
Unremembered Country Poems
World's End
And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic
Nell's Quilt
Voyage of Discovery: Captain Crook and the Exploration of the Pacific
1986
Birds Landing
France: Fin De Siecle
Mountain Light: In Search of the Dynamic Landscape
Small Business: A Novel
The Golden Gate
The Golden Gate: A Novel in Verse
Giovanni and Lusanna: Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence
Left Out in the Rain
Sapphics Against Anger and Other Poems
The Secret of the Mountain
1985
1984
1983
A Dime to Dance By
A Gathering of Old Men
Cry of the Kalahari
Dear Mr. Henshaw
French Gothic Architecture 12th-13th Century
Klamath Knot
Mountains of the Middle Kingdom: Exploring the High Peaks of China and Tibet
The First Elizabeth
Collected Poems, 1930-83
1982
1981
1980
1979
Years of the French
Been in the Storm so Long
Dear Blood
Fool and the Dancing Bear
Sea Glass
Symbols of Eternity: Art of Landscape Painting in China
The Morning Star
Urban Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousness, and the Origins of the American Revolution
1978
1977
1976
1975
1974
1973
1972
1971
1970
1969
1968
1967
A Night of Watching
All the Little Live Things
Fool's Gold: The Decline and Fall of Captain John Sutter of California
Robert Lee. A Complete Man: A Portrait
Fathers
Silent Ship, Silent Sea
The Rose of Solitude
The Young Stalin: The Early Years of an Elusive Revolutionary
1966
All the Little Heroes
Chancy and the Grand Rascal
The Cave and the Mountain: A Study of EM Forster
The Crow Flies Crooked
The Stone Mason of Tor House: The Life and Works of Robinson Jeffers
Leonard Pitt Decline of the Californios A Social History of the Spanish-Speaking Californians, 1846-1890
The Ordeal of the Constitution
1965
Blue Hen's Chick: A Life in Context
Oil, Land, and Politics: The California Career of Thomas Robert Bard
The Search for Meriwether Lewis: From Tillamook to Grinder's Stand
The Year of the Death
Campion Towers
Cellist
Final Challenge: The American Frontier 1804-1845
The Selected Poems
1964
1963
A History of Russia
South From San Francisco - San Mateo County, CA
The Hemlock and the Cross: Humanism, Socrates, and Christ
The House That Tai Ming Built
Ah, Julian! A Memoir of Julian Brodetsky
James Gibbons Huneker: Critic of the Seven Arts
The Keys and the Candle
1962
Franz Kafka: Parable and Paradox
Heart of the Wild: Animal Stories of the California Redwood Coast
John Adams
Journey into Darkness: Cabeza de Vaca's Expedition Across North America, 1528-36
The Everlasting Fire
Adolph Autro: A Biography
First Woman Ambulance Surgeon: Emily Barringer
1961
1960
1959
Alexander Hamilton: A Portrait in Paradox
Flight from Ashiya
The Earth Shook, the Sky Burned : A Photographic Record of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire
The Thirteenth Apostle
End of American Innocence
Thaddeus Stevens: Scourge of the South
This is the Desert: The Story of America's Arid Religion
1958
1957
1956
1955
1954
1953
1952
1951
1950
About Mrs. Leslie
Bridal Journey
Sea Road to the Indies: An Account of the Voyages and Exploits of the Portuguese Navigators, Together with the Life and Times of Dom Vasco da Gama, Capitao-Mor, Viceroy of India and Count of Vidigueira Indies
Dominant Seventh
Educating our Daughters: A Challenge to the Colleges
Fifth Chinese Daughter
Tomas and the Red Headed Angel
1949
1948
1947
1946
1945
1944
Caesar and Christ
Caesar and Christ: A History of Roman Civilization and of Christianity from Their Beginnings to A.D. 325
Captain Retread
Woodrow Wilson and the Lost Peace
Forward Observer
Mystery at Thunderbolt House
One Day at Beetle Rock
The Phoenix and the Tortoise
1943
1942
1941
1940
1939
1938
1937
1936
God and Man’s Destiny: Inquiries into the metaphysical foundations of faith
In Dubious Battle
Rim of Christendom: A Biography of Eusebio Francisco Kino, Pacific Coast Pioneer
Ordeal by Hunger: The Story of the Donner Party
Snow Covered Wagons: A Pioneer Epic: The Donner Party 1846-1847
