Celebration: 44th Annual Northern California Book Awards

The 44th Annual Northern California Book Awards will honor works published in 2024 by Northern California authors and California-based translators. Presented by the Northern California Book Reviewers, Poetry Flash and the San Francisco Public Library—with community partners Mechanics' Institute Library and the Women’s National Book Association–San Francisco Chapter—the awards celebrate literary excellence across the region.

Winning authors will accept their awards and share brief remarks about their books.  A reception will follow in the Latino/Hispanic Community Room. Nominated and honored titles will be available for purchase and signing.

The Fred Cody Award for Lifetime Achievement and Service will be presented for lifetime achievement and distinguished service to the literary community. This year’s Fred Cody Award goes to Rebecca Solnit, writer, historian, and activist, author of more than twenty books on feminism, western and urban history, popular power, social change and insurrection, wandering and walking, hope and catastrophe. Her books include No Straight Road Takes You There: Essays for Uneven Terrain; Orwell’s Roses; Recollections of My Nonexistence; Hope in the Dark; Men Explain Things to Me; A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster; and A Field Guide to Getting Lost.  

The NCBA Groundbreaker Award will be presented to Paul Yamazaki, who has been called San Francisco’s bookselling superhero, the principal book buyer for City Lights Books for over 50 years, and author of Reading the Room: A Bookseller’s Tale. The award is presented to pioneering and innovative work in the literary community. 

The California Translation Awards in Poetry and Prose will honor works of translation by translators based anywhere in California. 

Northern California reviewers and editors, members of Northern California Book Reviewers, select the awards. Membership is open to eligible Northern California reviewers and editors. All of the nominated books, the NCBR Recommended Reading List, will be acknowledged and celebrated at the ceremony. Judges’ statements by Northern California Book Reviewers will be available in the event program and on the NCBA page at Poetryflash.org.

The nominees will be announced on Poetryflash.org in August. The categories are Fiction, Poetry, Creative Nonfiction, General Nonfiction, Children’s Literature, and the California Translation Awards.

History of the Northern California Book Awards Since 1981, the Northern California Book Reviewers, a volunteer group of book reviewers and book review editors, have honored the work of Northern California authors. One of the group's founders was Fred Cody, proprietor of the late great independent bookstore in Berkeley. The Fred Cody Award for lifetime achievement is presented every year to a member of the literary community. Previous recipients include Jane Hirshfield, Brenda Hillman, Isabel Allende, Juan Felipe Herrera, Daniel Ellsberg, Sandra M. Gilbert, Jack Hirschman, Judy Grahn, Susan Griffin, Willis Barnstone, Adam Hochschild, Kay Ryan, Michael Pollan, Al Young, Tamim Ansary, Andrew Hoyem, Diane di Prima, Orville Schell, Philip Levine, Ronald Takaki, Francisco X. Alarcón, Carolyn Kizer, Ishmael Reed, Maxine Hong Kingston, Robert Hass, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Malcolm Margolin, Adrienne Rich, Wallace Stegner, Kay Boyle, William Everson, Alice Walker, Gary Snyder, Jessica Mitford, Tillie Olsen, M.F.K. Fisher, Robert Duncan, and Nancy J. Peters.