In 2009 these are the awards for:
Becky: The Life and Loves of Becky Thatcher
Lenore Hart
Best book that illuminated the creative process behind a sitcom of my childhood:
Sit, Ubu, Sit: How I went from Brooklyn to Hollywood with the same woman, same dog and a lot less hair
Gary David Goldburg
Best gardening book for people with not a lot of money to buy fancy stuff:
Gardening when it Counts
Steve Soloman
Best Historical Fiction Combined with Star-Crossed Love, the Boston Molasses Disaster and Pro-Labor Leanings:
The Given Day
Dennis Lehane
Best Tiny Book that Propelled the Creation of a Landscaping Focal Point:
Arches and Pergolas
Richard Key
Best Thing You Can Probably Do for Yourself
with honors in Best Title:
Full Catastrophe Living
Jon Kabat–Zinn
Best Account of My People:
Plenty
Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKennon
Best re-reading of a Top-Ten Book:
Prodigal Summer
Barbara Kingsolver
Best start of a YA series:
City of Ember
Jeanne DuPru
Best How-To Book Written by My People:
The Urban Homestead: Your Guide for Self-Sufficient Living in the City
Kelly Coyne & Erik Knutzen
Best Book to Transform Your Pacific Northwest (and other regions too) Backyard:
Gaia’s Garden
Toby Hemenway
Best Book Featuring a Hard-as-Nails Heroine:
These Is My Words
Nancy E. Turner
Best What-If:
Abraham Lincoln: A Novel Life
Tony Wolk
Best Collective Voices And I-Can’t-Recommend-This-Enough!:
Three Girls and Their Brother
Theresa Rebeck
Best Set-In-WWII-Historical Fiction:
Skeletons at the Feast
Chris Bohjalian
Perhaps the Best Fiction Book I Read in 2009 and You Should Read It Too:
American Wife
Curtis Sittenfeld
Worst Book That Totally Dragged Down The Series:
The Prophet of Yonwood
Jeanne DuPrau
Best Meander Through Some Characters’ Lives:
Eat, Drink & Be From Mississippi
Nanci Kincaid
Best Intriguing Premise Historical Fiction:
The Birth of Venus
Sarah Dunant
Best Re-Reading of a Book I Loved as a Teenager:
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Betty Smith
Best Youthful Voice of Which I Probably Won’t Like in Movie Form:
Me & Orsen Wells
Robert Kaplow