2009 BC Book Prizes Nominees on AbeBooks.com

BC Book Prizes logo - congratulations to the 2009 finalists

Congratulations to Gabor Maté, MD, whose critical anaylsis and compassionate exploration of addiction, In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, has won the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize.

For the past six years, AbeBooks.com has been a sponsor of the BC Book Prizes – British Columbia’s top literary event. AbeBooks is headquartered in Victoria, the capital of BC, and we were founded by British Columbians in 1996 so we are thrilled to acclaim the writing talent on our doorstep.

As in previous years, AbeBooks is a sponsor for the event, and is supporting the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize. This year's other finalists for the prize included a book about the increasingly serious water crisis in North America, essays about our origins as individuals and getting back to our roots, a unique and new look at the messages of Jesus Christ, and a study of the contrasts and contradictions between tradition and modernity in the United States.

The winners will be announced on April 25th, 2009. Congratulations to all the finalists, and good luck!

(Want to Win 10 BC books?)

Finalists for the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize:

In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction by Gabor Mate, MD

Winner!

In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction
Gabor Maté, MD

In this timely and profoundly original new book, bestselling writer and physician Gabor Maté looks at the epidemic of addictions in our society, tells us why we are so prone to them and what is needed to liberate ourselves from their hold on our emotions and behaviours. He proposes a compassionate approach to helping drug addicts and, for the many behaviour addicts among us, to addressing the void addiction is meant to fill. For over seven years Gabor Maté has been the staff physician at the Portland Hotel, a residence and harm reduction facility in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts is valuable, indispensable reading by those affected directly or indirectly by addiction, or by anyone simply wishing to better understand the properties and effects of the disease.

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Going Home: Essays
Tim Lilburn

Tim Lilburn has long been a deep thinker on issues of ecology and writing, and on how the two fit together philosophically, morally, and ethically. In Going Home, Lilburn addresses how we relate (often uneasily) to our physical landscape in Canada and the United States. Surprising and enlightening, the collection finishes with two unforgettable personal essays, where Lilburn writes about his effort to enact desire in the place where his ancestors are buried, the flatlands and coulees of southern Saskatchewan. Masterful and timely, Going Home is a wake-up call for the whole of North America to the fact that our “home” is endangered because of the way we live in it. Tim Lilburn is a poet and essayist, and the author of six books of poems, including Kill-site, To the River, Moosewood Sandhills, and most recently, Orphic Politics. He has been nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Award twice. Lilburn lives in Victoria, BC, where he teaches at the University of Victoria.

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Dry Spring: The Coming Water Crisis of North America
Chris Wood

The globe is running out of water. Lakes, aquifers and rivers disappear, but we consume more than ever. Many fast-growing places—the U.S. Southwest, B.C.’s Okanagan, the Great Lakes area—face deadly scarcity. Yet even as the world dries, some parts are getting more violently stormy. Dry Spring tells dramatic stories of floods and droughts that will worsen over the next 25 years. Chris Wood shows that Canada overall will get more water—and America less. He calls provocatively upon Canada to find solutions and opportunities jointly with the U.S. And he describes inspiring choices by which we can save this precious resource for our future. Journalist and former Maclean’s editor Chris Wood has written in the Globe and Mail, the Financial Post, the Walrus, the Tyee and has won two Gold National Magazine Awards for his work. He is the co-author of Blockbusters and Trade Wars, shortlisted for the Donner Prize.

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The Jesus Sayings: A Quest for His Authentic Message
Rex Weyler

Jesus never said he was the son of God, he made no mention of the devil, and he didn’t instruct his followers to wait for their reward in the eternal afterlife. Today, many people are shocked by these sober conclusions of modern biblical scholarship. So what did Jesus teach? In The Jesus Sayings, writer and religion commentator Rex Weyler provides a fresh and provocative view of Jesus’ message and his mission. Weyler uses the latest scholarship applied to the complete range of sources to bring this astounding and important message to the general reader in a way that is entertaining, inspiring, and enlightening. Rex Weyler is the critically acclaimed author of Blood of the Land, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and Greenpeace: The Inside Story, which was a finalist for the Shaughnessy Cohen Award for Political Non-fiction and the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize. He lives in Vancouver.

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What is America? A Short History of the New World Order
Ronald Wright

Brimming with insight into history and human behaviour, and written in Ronald Wright’s captivating style, What Is America? shows how this came to pass; how the United States, which regards itself as the most modern country on earth, is also deeply archaic, a stronghold not only of religious fundamentalism but of “modern” beliefs in limitless progress and a universal mission that have fallen under suspicion elsewhere in the west, a rethinking driven by two World Wars and the reckless looting of our planet. Ronald Wright is the internationally acclaimed author of A Scientific Romance, winner of Britain’s David Higham Prize for Fiction. His other major bestsellers include Time Among the Maya and Stolen Continents, and an acclaimed collection of travel pieces, Home and Away. He lives on Salt Spring Island, BC.

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