GOLD MEDAL - FICTION
Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins

In a hypnotic and powerful novel, Marianne Wiggins describes America at the brink of the Atomic Age in Evidence of Things Unseen. Through her main character – a man intrigued with electricity, bioluminescence and especially x-rays, a true believer in science and the future of technology – in masterful prose Wiggins tells a poignant love story charting the shifting currents of a relationship over two decades, but also takes on much larger issues that describe the tragedy of the human condition. The author of seven novels, including John Dollar and Almost Heaven, Wiggins has won a Whiting Award and a National Endowment of the Arts grant.

GOLD MEDAL – NONFICTION
River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West by Rebecca Solnit

In this original work, cultural historian Rebecca Solnit examines the fascinating life of Eadweard Muybridge, the pioneer of stop-action photography, whose breakthrough made movies possible. Much more than a biography, River of Shadows synthesizes history, art, technology, landscape and philosophy in advancing the premise that 19th-century California shaped and defined the modern world. The work shows how the perception of space and time have been monumentally changed by the innovations that came out of that era of creativity and opportunity. This gracefully written social history is accompanied by Muybridge photographs. Solnit is a writer, critic, museum curator and political activist, and her most recent books are Wanderlust: A History of Walking and Hollow City: The Siege of San Francisco and the Crisis of American Urbanism.

GOLD MEDAL - POETRY
The Strange Hours Travelers Keep by August Kleinzahler

Variously described as frenetic and wily and ever alive to the music of spoken words, August Kleinzahler's poems zip and zoom all over geographic, emotional and artistic maps. Always unpredictable and full of vitality, he finds inspiration in everything from road trips to jazz, from Mongol hordes to the ominous roar of fighter jets, and is able to switch his tone as deftly as his subject matter. The New York Times finds his humor "sometimes whimsical, often elegiac and intermittently quite savage." Kleinzahler has authored ten books, and his work has appeared in numerous journals and newspapers, garnering him several awards, including an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

SILVER MEDAL – FICTION
Old School: A Novel by Tobias Wolff

Wolff's Old School, set in a New England prep school, is both a coming of age story and a resonant exploration of the seductive nature and overpowering allure of the literary life. With cameos by Robert Frost, Ayn Rand and Ernest Hemingway, Old School also takes on the slippery nature of truth and fiction. A professor in the Creative Writing Department at Stanford University, Wolff is a recipient of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Rea Award for excellence in the short story and the PEN/Faulkner Award. He is best known as the author of the genre-defining memoir This Boy's Life.

SILVER MEDAL - FICTION
Parasites Like Us by Adam Johnson

Adam Johnson's first novel is a satire of academia, complete with an apocalyptic twist. Anthropologist Hank Hannah hopes that by studying all of the lost civilizations of human history, he may finally come to understand the hearts of those nearest to him. But when one of his students discovers a prehistoric spear point, Hannah abandons his classroom in order to exhume a 12,000-year-old grave. In the process he unearths an ancient and deadly legacy. In this wildly original work, Johnson, who teaches at Stanford University, demonstrates an outrageous flair that distinguished Emporium, his first collection of stories.

SILVER MEDAL – FIRST FICTION
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer

ZZ Packer has created a compilation of fascinating stories in her long-awaited debut, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. Each story is narrated by a distinct character, mostly black teenage girls, exploring themes of racism, disenfranchisement, sexuality and religion. The settings are diverse, from Baltimore to a bleak depiction of life in Japan, but each vignette is linked by a clear, provocative voice and poignant humor. Packer has accomplished not only a series of riveting and sometimes heartbreaking stories, but also a cohesive and insightful portrayal of the complexities and difficult decisions faced while growing up in America. An award-winning writer, Packer has published pieces in The New Yorker and Harper's.

SILVER MEDAL – NONFICTION
American Expressionism: Art and Social Change 1920-1950 by Bram Dijkstra

Professor emeritus of English literature at the University of California, San Diego and author of seven books on literary and artistic subjects, Bram Dijkstra sheds new light on the American art that existed before Abstract Expressionism burst onto the scene in the 1940s. American Expressionism: Art and Social Change 1920-1950 argues that a generation of important left-wing artists, many of them Jewish, were the victims of intellectual, political and corporate interests bent on portraying a brighter, shinier United States. In the paintings of the pre-Abstract Expressionist era, Dijkstra finds a rich and undervalued tradition and a deep concern for the dispossessed and working people.

SILVER MEDAL – YOUNG ADULT
The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau

Ember is a post-apocalyptic, underground city, where the only light comes from flood lamps. The pitch-black unknown surrounding it has never been explored. After 241 years, resources are running low, and generator failure may soon plunge Ember into total darkness. When 12-year-old Lina finds fragments of ancient instructions on how to get out, she and her friend Doon embark on a dangerous mission to unlock Ember's secrets and find the way to the world of light and survival for their people. The mystery and adventure build to a cliffhanger ending. Teacher, editor and technical writer Jeanne DuPrau is at work on a sequel to her stunning first novel.

SILVER MEDAL – JUVENILE
Just A Minute: A Trickster Tale and Counting Book by Yuyi Morales

In this folktale set in Mexico, Death arrives at Grandma Beetle's door on her birthday in the form of Señor Calavera (Mr. Skull). "Just a minute," she says sweetly, stalling for time. While he waits, she performs a series of chores in preparation for her party, counting them out in Spanish and English. By the time the celebration with her nine grandchildren begins, Señor Calavera has been transformed into a guest, joining the fun and extending Grandma Beetle's lease on life. Yuyi Morales's vibrant illustrations add richness to her charming read-aloud story.

SILVER MEDAL – CALIFORNIANA
The King of California: J. G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire by Mark Arax and Rick Wartzman

For 50 years, Jim Boswell has headed an agribusiness empire while zealously guarding his privacy. In a masterful combination of research and reporting, Arax and Wartzman bring to light the history of this slave-owning family from Georgia which migrated to the San Joaquin Valley in the 1920s. By audaciously draining Tulare Lake and planting cotton, the Boswells transformed the 400-mile bed of wildflowers admired by John Muir into the biggest, most industrialized farm in the world. Rich in detail and lively in style, this is a narrative of power, fortune, influence-peddling and anti-labor politics and also a social history of California over the last century.

SILVER MEDAL – NOTABLE CONTRIBUTION TO PUBLISHING
Rising Up and Rising Down by McSweeney's Books & William T. Vollmann

An intense seven-volume treatise on violence, William Vollmann's opus looks back on the world's bloody history and strives to provide meaning and guidance through a "Moral Calculus." Using a broad spectrum of source material, including interviews, photographs, situation maps, illustrations, pamphlets, newspaper clippings and his own firsthand experiences in war zones and ghettos, Vollmann examines the use and justification of violence for political ends. He also stimulates thought about the role violence and ethics play in all of our lives, even if we are bystanders. Among the awards Vollmann has received for his compelling works of journalism and fiction are the Whiting Writers Award, the PEN Center West Award and the California Book Awards Silver Medal for Nonfiction.

SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Where I Was From by Joan Didion

California comes under Joan Didion's merciless microscope in this controversial look at the greed, acquisitiveness and wasteful extravagance lurking beneath the state's eternal sunshine. She dramatically highlights the gap between California's rosy notion of itself as a land that stood for individual entrepreneurship and the reality of growing government control and reliance on federal money. Throughout the work, Didion, a Sacramento native, digs deep to find the "point" of California, reaching conclusions that many will find inflammatory. She has written five novels and six previous books of nonfiction.