New York Society Library Announces Winners of NYC Book Awards

New York -- The New York Society Library is honored to announce the winners of our 2018-2019 New York City Book Awards:

·        Victoria Johnson, American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic (Liveright)

·        Stephen L. Carter, Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster (Henry Holt and Co.)

·        Philip Ashforth Coppola, One-Track Mind: Drawing the New York Subway (Princeton Architectural Press)

·        Elizabeth Acevedo, The Poet X (HarperTeen)

·        Karina Yan Glaser, The Vanderbeekers and the Hidden Garden (HMH Books for Young Readers)

·        The Hornblower Award for a First Book: Albert Samaha, Never Ran, Never Will: Boyhood and Football in a Changing American Inner City (PublicAffairs)

Founded in 1995, these awards honor the best books about New York City published in a given year, regardless of genre. As New York City’s oldest cultural institution, the Library is uniquely suited to present the New York City Book Awards. 

Members of the book awards selection committee read and reviewed approximately 140 books published in 2018 with New York City as their major topic or setting. The winners qualify as titles of literary quality or historical importance that evoke the spirit or enhance appreciation of New York City, shedding some new or unusual light on it. The Hornblower Award, established in 2011, is presented to an excellent New York City-related book by a first-time author.

The selection committee itself includes several New York City-based authors. It was chaired by Warren Wechsler and comprised Bianca Calabresi, Alex Gilvarry (From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant, Eastman Was Here), Karl E. Meyer (The China Collectors, Pax Ethica), Janice P. Nimura (Daughters of the Samurai), Geeta Tewari, and Stephen Raphael.

The winning authors and publishers will be celebrated at a reception and awards presentation on Wednesday, May 1, at the New York Society Library. The ceremony is by invitation.

More general information and a complete list of winners from the awards’ past 23 years can be found here.

The 2018-2019 New York City Book Awards are generously underwritten by Ellen M. Iseman.