Novelist, essayist, and Portland Magazine editor Brian Doyle has won a 2016 Pacific Northwest Book Award for his essay collection, Children and Other Wild Animals, according to the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association. Described as “…quirky prose at once lyrical, daring, and refreshing…poignant but not pap, sharp but not sermons, and revelatory at every turn…there is humor and humility and a palpable sense of wonder,” Doyle’s book is entertainingly subtitled Notes on badgers, otters, sons, hawks, daughters, dogs, bears, air, bobcats, fishers, mascots, Charles Darwin, newts, sturgeon, roasting squirrels, parrots, elk, foxes, tigers and various other zoological matters.
A volunteer committee of independent booksellers chose six books from more than 250 nominated titles published in 2015; the six winners were chosen from a list of 12 finalists announced in November 2015. Doyle is the author of many books, including the novels Mink River and The Plover; The Grail, his account of a year in a pinot noir vineyard in Oregon; and The Wet Engine, a memoir about his infant son’s heart surgery and the young doctor who saved his life.
Among various honors for his work is inclusion in Best American Essays, Best American Science and Nature Writing, Best Spiritual Writing, and the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Previous recipients of that award include Mary Oliver, Kurt Vonnegut, and Flannery O’Connor.
Selection committee comments for the winning titles can be viewed on the 2016 Book Awards page of the PNBA website. For more information contact the marketing and communications office at 7202 or mktg@up.edu.