Billy Lynn

The 35th annual L.A. Times Book Prizes are announced today. There are five finalists in 10 categories, and two prize winners were revealed: The Robert Kirsch Award for Lifetime Achievement will be presented to author T.C. Boyle, and LeVar Burton will be honored with the Innovators Award for inspiring generations of readers with Reading Rainbow. The awards will be presented Saturday, April 18, in conjunction with the L.A. Times Festival of Books April 18-19.

Now in its the eighth year, the National Book Foundation  5 Under 35 program honors five fiction writers who are among the best of a new generation of writers. The honorees enjoy the special distinction of each being personally selected by a previous National Book Award Finalist or Winner.

This year’s winners of the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes have been revealed, celebrating the best books of the year. Below, we’ve linked to free samples of the award-winning books for your reading pleasure. The winners were announced at ceremony on Friday.

Los Angeles Times Book Prizes 2012 Winners:

Biography: Robert A. Caro / The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson(Knopf)
Current Interest

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