The past Monday night, as many of you know, Melville House and Shelf Awareness hosted the first annual Independent Booksellers’ Choice Awards. The event took place at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe and was hosted by the enthralling, delightfully charismatic, and not to mention hilarious, David Rees. The awards were distributed by the lovely and talented Julie Bosman alongside quirky anecdotes from Rees and somehow despite much confusion about the actual height of Jake Gyllenhaal (4’9? 6’5? the world may never know…) all of the winners were announced. They are:

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

(Night Shade Books)

The Instructions by Adam Levin

(McSweeney’s)

The Singer’s Gun by Emily St. John Mandel

(Unbridled)

Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes

(Grove/Atlantic)

Wingshooters by Nina Revoyr

(Akashic)

Each of the winners will have their title displayed in the windows of participating independent bookstores. As our own Dennis Johnson commented regarding the awards, “The IBCA is good for the author, good for the bookseller, and good for the publisher, and so it’s good for art and industry.”

If Monday night’s event was anything to go by the independent bookseller and author community has a lot to be proud of and honoring them in this way was undoubtedly a pleasure for all involved. Thank you to anyone who came out and participated in the event; we hope you had as much fun as we did! And a very special thanks to Julie Bosman and David Rees for making the event  so delightful.