Since I'm a science book reviewer, I thought I'd pass along a news release I got about this year's Orion Book Award winner and other nominated titles.
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PRESS RELEASE
April 1, 2008

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For Immediate Release
Contact:
Chip Blake, Editor-in-Chief, Orion
413-528-4422 x11

2008 Orion Book Award
Winner: Diane Ackerman's The Zookeeper's Wife
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Diane Ackerman's The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story (W. W. Norton) has been selected to receive the 2008 Orion Book Award, which is conferred annually to a book that deepens our connection to the natural world, presents new ideas about our relationship with nature, and achieves excellence in writing.

"The Zookeepers Wifeis a groundbreaking work of nonfiction," said selection committee member Mark Kurlansky, "in which the human relationship to nature is explored in an absolutely original way through looking at the Holocaust." Kathleen Dean Moore, the committee's chairperson, said: "A few years ago, 'nature' writers were asking themselves, How can a book be at the same time a work of art, an act of conscientious objection to the destruction of the world, and an affirmation of hope and human decency? The Zookeeper's Wife answers this question."

The author will be presented with a prize of $3,000 at a celebration on April 16 at Reeves Contemporary Gallery, 535 West 24th Street, 2nd Floor, New York, New York, from 5:30-8:00 p.m. The event is open to the public.

The following books were finalists for the award: Strange as This Weather Has Been: A Novel, by Ann Pancake (Counterpoint); The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring, by Richard Preston (Random House); Sky Time in Gray's River: Living for Keeps in a Forgotten Place, by Robert Michael Pyle (Houghton Mifflin); The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman (St. Martin's Press/Thomas Dunne Books). Each of these authors will receive $500.

Nominations for the award were made by advisors, writers, editors, and contributing editors of Orion. Over forty books published in 2007 were considered. Selection of the finalists and the winning book were made by a five-person selection committee comprised of Linda Hogan (Dwellings; Solar
Storms); Mark Kurlansky (Cod; Salt); Kathleen Dean Moore (The Pine Island Paradox; Holdfast); David Rothenberg (Always the Mountains; Why Birds Sing); and Jennifer Sahn (editor of Orion).

Major support for the 2008 Orion Book Award was provided by the
Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, with The Orion Society contributing additional underwriting support.
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Orion is a bimonthly magazine devoted to the need for ecological awareness and a new relationship between people and nature. It is published by The Orion Society, a nonprofit organization based in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. For more information about Orion Magazine and the Orion Book Award visit www.orionmagazine.org.