Mass. Book Award honors authors
The Massachusetts Center for the Book recently announced the winners of this year’s Massachusetts Book Award, honoring books published in 2021 by authors currently living in the state. The fiction award goes to Ruth Ozeki of Northampton for her novel “The Book of Form and Nothingness.” Fiction honors include Katherine Sherbrooke’s “Leaving Coy’s Hill” and Buki Papillon’s “An Ordinary Wonder.” Tiya Miles of Cambridge won the nonfiction award for “All That She Carried.” Honors go to Elizabeth Kolbert’s “Under a White Sky” and Nathaniel Philbrick’s “Travels With George.” Martín Espada of Shelburne Falls takes the poetry award for “Floaters.” Honors include Lesléa Newman’s “I Wish My Father” and Cammy Thomas’s “Tremors.” Rajani LaRocca of Concord takes the YA award for “Red, White, and Whole.” Honors include Malinda Lo’s “Last Night at the Telegraph Club” and Martin Sandler’s “Picturing a Nation.” In the picture book category, author Tricia Elam Walker and illustrator Ekua Holmes of Boston won for “Dream Street.” Honors go to Jacqueline Davies and Sonia Sánchez’s “Bubbles ...UP!” and Maria Gianferrari and Felicita Sala’s “Be a Tree!” The awards ceremony will take place at the State House on Jan. 18. For more information, visit massbook.org.
Coming out
“Dr. No” by Percival Everett (Graywolf ) “Toad” by Katherine Dunn (MCD) “Foster” by Claire Keegan (Grove)
Pick of the week
Charlee Bianchini at the Bookstore of Gloucester recommends “This Is Happiness” by Niall Williams (Bloomsbury): “This is, above all else, a portrait of a community and all that encapsulates. In the small village of Faha, the rain has stopped falling but electricity is on its way. The story follows Noel and Christy and their chronicles of love lost and found.”