Annal:1997 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current Interest
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the year 1997. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
- 1997 LATimes–Current Interest winner
- 1997 NBCC–Nonfiction winner
- Score: 20.47
When three-month-old Lia Lee Arrived at the county hospital emergency room in Merced, California, a chain of events was set in motion from which neither she nor her parents nor her doctors would ever recover. Lia’s parents, Foua and Nao Kao, were part of a large Hmong community in Merced, refugees from the CIA-run “Quiet War” in Laos. The Hmong, traditionally a close-knit and fiercely people, have been less amenable to assimilation than most immigrants, adhering steadfastly to the rituals and beliefs of their ancestors. Lia’s pediatricians, Neil Ernst and his…
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster
- 1998 Pulitzer–Nonfiction finalist
- 1997 LATimes–Current Interest finalist
- 1997 NBCC–Nonfiction finalist
- Score: 18.48
When Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10,1996, he hadn’t slept in fifty-seven hours and was reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion. As he turned to begin the perilous descent from 29,028 feet (roughly the cruising altitude of an Airbus jetliner), twenty other climbers were still pushing doggedly to the top, unaware that the sky had begun to roil with clouds…
Into Thin Air is the definitive account of the deadliest season in the history of Everest by the acclaimed Outside journalist and…
The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture
- 1997 LATimes–Current Interest finalist
- Score: 6.47
Though many in the gay community strive to be accepted into mainstream society, assimilation is watering down a once vibrant culture, rendering it as bland as a production of Streetcar without Blanche Dubois. As corporate America opens its arms and the gay population comes running, the commercialization of gay culture makes it conventional—imagine Valley of the Dolls with M&M’s.
In this provocative, brilliantly reasoned book, charged throughout with a penetrating eye and stinging wit, Daniel Harris examines the many shadings of the gay experience…
- 1997 LATimes–Current Interest finalist
- Score: 6.47
“An original, wise and courageous work that moves beyond sterile arguments and lifts the discussion of race and justice to a new and more hopeful level.”—Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
In this groundbreaking, powerfully reasoned, lucid work that is certain to provoke controversy, Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy takes on a highly complex issue in a way that no one has before. Kennedy uncovers the long-standing failure of the justice system to protect blacks from criminals, probing allegations that blacks are victimized on a widespread basis by racially…
Our Guys: The Glen Ridge Rape and the Secret Life of the Perfect Suburb
- 1997 LATimes–Current Interest finalist
- Score: 6.47
It was a crime that captured national attention. In the idyllic suburb of Glen Ridge, New Jersey, four of the town’s most popular high school athletes were accused of raping a retarded young woman while nine of their teammates watched. Everyone was riveted by the question: What went wrong in this seemingly flawless American town?
In search of the answer, Bernard Lefkowitz takes the reader behind Glen Ridge’s manicured facade into the shadowy basement that was the scene of the rape, into the mansions on “Millionaire’s Row”, into the All-American high school,…
