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The City of Vancouver Book Award is a Canadian literary award, that has been presented annually by the city of Vancouver, British Columbia to one or more works of literature judged as the year's best fiction, non-fiction, poetry or drama work about the city.
As with the City of Toronto Book Award, the award may go to one or more books.
The award has a monetary value of $3,000. The prize is funded by interest earned from the city's publishing reserve, which was established in 1977 as a permanent legacy for writers and publishers. The fund received royalties generated from Vancouver's First Century: A Photo History of Vancouver, edited by city staff. The third edition of the book, renamed Vancouver: A City Album, for many years generated royalty payments for the fund.
Year | Author | Title | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
1989[a] | Paul Yee | Saltwater City: An Illustrated History of the Chinese in Vancouver | Winner | |
1990 | Sky Lee | Disappearing Moon Cafe | Winner | |
Rosemary Brown | Being Brown: A Very Public Life | Finalist | ||
Stan Persky | Buddy's: Meditations on Desire | Finalist | ||
John Schreiner | The Refiners: A Century of BC Sugar | Finalist | ||
1991[b] | Michael Kluckner | Vanishing Vancouver | Winner | |
Cyril Leonoff | Leonard Frank: An Enterprising Life | Finalist | ||
Robin Ward | Robin Ward's Vancouver | Finalist | ||
1992[c] | Gerald Straley | Trees of Vancouver: A Guide to the Common and Unusual Trees of the City | Winner | |
Elizabeth Bower | No Forwarding Address | Finalist | ||
Gregory Edwards | Hidden Cities | Finalist | ||
Paul Grescoe | Flesh Wound | Finalist | ||
Timothy Oke and Graeme Wynn | Vancouver and Its Regions | Finalist | ||
1993[d] | Bruce Macdonald | Vancouver: A Visual History | Winner | |
Irene Howard | The Struggle for Social Justice in British Columbia | Finalist | ||
Michael Kluckner and John Atkin | Heritage Walks Around Vancouver | Finalist | ||
1994[e] | Denise Chong | The Concubine's Children | Winner | |
Paul Grescoe and Karl Spreitz | Vancouver: Visions of a City | Finalist | ||
Robin Ward | Robin Ward's Heritage West Coast | Finalist | ||
Michael J. Yates | Line Screw | Finalist | ||
1995[f] | Elspeth Cameron | Earle Birney: A Life | Winner | |
Lois Simmie and Cynthia Nugent | Mister Got to Go | Finalist | ||
Ulli Stelzer and Robert Davidson | Eagle Transforming: The Art of Robert Davidson | Finalist | ||
1996[g] | Wayson Choy | The Jade Peony | Winner | |
Grant Buday | Monday Night Man | Finalist | ||
Robert A. J. McDonald | Making Vancouver: Class, Status & Social Boundaries 1863-1913 | Finalist | ||
1997[h] | Rhodri Windsor Liscombe | The New Spirit: Modern Architecture in Vancouver, 1938-1963 | Winner | |
John A. Cherrington | Vancouver at the Dawn: A Turn-of-the-Century Portrait | Finalist | ||
Fred Thirkell and Bob Scullion | Postcards from the Past: Edwardian Images of Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley | Finalist | ||
1998[i] | Chuck Davis | The Greater Vancouver Book: An Urban Encyclopaedia | Winner | |
Betty O'Keefe and Ian Macdonald | The Mulligan Affair: Top Cop on the Take | Finalist | ||
Carmen Rodríguez | And a Body to Remember With | Finalist | ||
1999[j] | Bud Osborn | Keys to Kingdoms | Winner | |
Shawn Blore and the editors of Vancouver Magazine | Vancouver: Secrets of the City | Finalist | ||
Grant Buday | White Lung | Finalist | ||
2000[k] | Lilia D'Acres and Donald Luxton | Lions Gate | Winner | |
Christine Allen and Collin Varner | Gardens of Vancouver | Finalist | ||
Wayson Choy | Paper Shadows: A Chinatown Childhood | Finalist | ||
Wing Chung Ng | The Chinese in Vancouver: The Pursuit of Identity and Power, 1945-80 | Finalist | ||
2001[l] | Madeleine Thien | Simple Recipes | Winner | |
Douglas Coupland | City of Glass: Douglas Coupland's Vancouver | Finalist | ||
Timothy Taylor | Stanley Park | Finalist | ||
Gary Wyatt (ed.) | Susan Point: Coast Salish Artist | Finalist | ||
2002[m] | Keith Carlson | A Sto:lo-Coast Salish Historical Atlas | Winner | |
Doreen Armitage | Burrard Inlet: A History | Finalist | ||
Bart Campbell | The Door is Open: Memoir of a Soup Kitchen Volunteer | Finalist | ||
Cynthia Flood | Making a Stone of the Heart | Finalist | ||
2003[n] | Lincoln Clarkes, Ken Dietrich-Campbell, Patricia Canning and Elaine Allan | Heroines | Winner | |
Reid Shier (ed.) | Stan Douglas: Every Building on 100 Block West Hastings | Winner | ||
John J. Clague and Bob Turner | Vancouver, City on the Edge: Living with a Dynamic Geological Landscape | Finalist | ||
Fiona Tinwei Lam | Intimate Distances | Finalist | ||
2004[o] | Daniel Francis | L.D.: Mayor Louis Taylor and the Rise of Vancouver | Winner | |
Annabel Lyon | The Best Thing for You | Finalist | ||
Paul Yee | The Bone Collector's Son | Finalist | ||
Caroline Adderson | Sitting Practice | Honourable mention | ||
John Punter | The Vancouver Achievement: Urban Planning and Design | Honourable mention | ||
Maggie de Vries | Missing Sarah: A Vancouver Woman Remembers Her Vanished Sister | Honourable mention | ||
2005[p] | Lance Berelowitz | Dream City: Vancouver and the Global Imagination | Winner | |
Wayson Choy | All That Matters | Finalist | ||
Leslie Robertson and Dara Culhane (eds.) | In Plain Sight: Reflections on Life in Downtown Eastside Vancouver | Finalist | ||
Various | The Vancouver Stories: West Coast Fiction from Canada's Best Writers | Finalist | ||
2006[q] | Jean Barman | Stanley Park's Secret: The Forgotten Families of Whoi Whoi, Kanaka Ranch, and Brockton Point | Winner | |
James P. Delgado | Waterfront: The Illustrated Maritime History of Greater Vancouver | Winner | ||
Derek Hayes | Historical Atlas of Vancouver and the Lower Fraser Valley | Finalist | ||
Abraham J. Rogatnick, Ian M. Thom, and Adele Weder | B.C. Binning | Finalist | ||
2007[r] | Michael Kluckner | Vancouver Remembered | Winner | |
Grant Arnold and Michael Turner | Fred Herzog: Vancouver Photographs | Finalist | ||
Anita Rau Badami | Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? | Finalist | ||
Brett Josef Grubisic | The Age of Cities | Finalist | ||
2008[s] | Brad Cran and Gillian Jerome | Hope in Shadows: Stories and Photographs of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside | Winner | |
Gary Geddes | Falsework | Finalist | ||
Eve Lazarus | At Home With History: The Untold Secrets of Greater Vancouver's Heritage Homes | Finalist | ||
Kaija Pepper | The Man Next Door Dances: The Art of Peter Bingham | Finalist | ||
2009[t] | Lee Henderson | The Man Game | Winner | |
Gabor Maté | In the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts | Finalist | ||
Meredith Quartermain | Nightmarker | Finalist | ||
2010[u] | Bruce Grenville and Scott Steedman | Visions of British Columbia | Winner | |
George Bowering | The Box | Finalist | ||
Matt Hern | Common Ground in a Liquid City | Finalist | ||
Chris MacDonald | A Guidebook to Contemporary Architecture in Vancouver | Finalist | ||
2011[v] | Michael Christie | The Beggar's Garden: Stories | Winner | |
Lynne Bowen | Whoever Gives Us Bread: The Story of Italians in British Columbia | Finalist | [2] | |
Wayde Compton | After Canaan: Essays on Race, Writing, and Region | Finalist | [2] | |
Lesley McKnight | Vancouver Kids | Finalist | [2] | |
2012[w] | W. H. New | YVR | Winner | |
John Mikhail Asfour and Elee Kraljii Gardiner (eds.) | V6A: Writing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside | Finalist | [3] | |
Claudia Cornwall | At the World's Edge: Curt Lang's Vancouver | Finalist | [3] | |
Ali Kazimi | Undesirables: White Canada and the Komagata Maru | Finalist | [3] | |
Jen Sookfong Lee | The Better Mother | Finalist | [3] | |
2013[x] | Amber Dawn | How Poetry Saved My Life: A Hustler's Memoir | Winner | [4] |
Jancis M. Andrews | The Ballad of Mrs. Smith | Finalist | ||
Brad Cran | Ink on Paper | Finalist | ||
Harold Kalman and Robin Ward | Exploring Vancouver: The Architectural Guide | Finalist | ||
Sean Kheraj | Inventing Stanley Park: An Environmental History | Finalist | ||
2014[y] | David Stouck | Arthur Erickson: An Architect's Life | Winner | |
Bruce Grierson | What Makes Olga Run? | Finalist | [5] | |
Doretta Lau | How Does a Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun? | Finalist | [5] | |
Ashley Little | Anatomy of a Girl Gang: A Novel | Finalist | [5] | |
Billeh Nickerson | Artificial Cherry | Finalist | [5] | |
2015[z] | Wayde Compton | The Outer Harbour: Stories | Winner | [6][7] |
Aaron Chapman | Live at the Commodore: The Story of Vancouver's Historic Commodore Ballroom | Finalist | ||
Bren Simmers | Hastings-Sunrise: Poems | Finalist | ||
Lois Simmie and Cynthia Nugent | Mister Got To Go, Where Are You? | Finalist | ||
2016[aa] | Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, Karen Duffek, and Tania Willard | Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun: Unceded Territories | Winner | [8] |
Wayde Compton and Renée Sarojini Saklikar (eds.) | The Revolving City: 51 Poems and the Stories Behind Them | Finalist | [9] | |
Lorimer Shenher | That Lonely Section of Hell: The Botched Investigation of a Serial Killer Who Almost Got Away | Finalist | [9] | |
2017 | Carleigh Baker | Bad Endings | Winner | [10] |
Grant Arnold, Ian M. Thom, Susan Point, Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse, Thomas Cannell, Myrtle McKay, and William McLennan | Susan Point: Spindle Whorl | Finalist | ||
Gabrielle Prendergast | Pandas on the Eastside | Finalist | ||
Sam Wiebe | Invisible Dead | Finalist | ||
2018 | Chelene Knight | Dear Current Occupant | Winner | [11] |
Travis Lupick | Fighting for Space: How a Group of Drug Users Transformed One City's Struggle with Addiction | Finalist | ||
Erín Moure | Sitting Shiva on Minto Avenue, by Toots | Finalist | ||
Rachel Rose | Sustenance: Writers from BC and Beyond on the Subject of Food | Finalist | ||
2019 | Robert Watt and Susan Point | People among the People: The public art of Susan Point | Winner | |
Phillip Huynh | The Forbidden Purple City | Finalist | ||
Eve Lazarus | Murder by Milkshake: An Astonishing True Story of Adultery, Arsenic, and a Charismatic Killer | Finalist | ||
Susin Nielsen | No Fixed Address | Finalist | ||
Shazia Hafiz Ramji | Port of Being | Finalist | ||
2020 | Catherine B. Clement | Chinatown Through a Wide Lens: The Hidden Photographs of Yucho Chow | Winner | [12] |
Francine Cunningham | on/me | Finalist | [13] | |
Alex Leslie | Vancouver for Beginners | Finalist | [13] | |
2021 | Michelle Good | Five Little Indians | Winner | [12] |
Joseph Dandurand | The East Side of It All | Finalist | [13] | |
Danny Ramadan and Anna Bron | Salma the Syrian Chef | Finalist | [13] | |
Marlene Yuen | Ho Sun Hing Printers | Honourable mention | [citation needed] | |
2022 | Karen Duffek, Bill McLennan, and Jordan Wilson | Where the Power Is: Indigenous Perspectives on Northwest Coast Art | Winner | |
Meghan Bell | Erase and Rewind | Finalist | [14] | |
Henry Doyle | No Shelter | Finalist | [14] | |
Grace Eiko Thomson | Chiru Sakura: Falling Cherry Blossoms | Finalist | [14] | |
Paul Wong | Debbie Cheung & Christopher Lee, Occupying Chinatown | Finalist | [14] |