Hominids nominated for Ontario Library Association award

Headline: Robert J. Sawyer science-fiction novel nominated for Ontario Library Association Award

The Ontario Library Association has unveiled the ten-book shortlist for its second annual readers'-choice Evergreen Award. On the list: the science-fiction novel Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer.

The shortlist was compiled from titles nominated by librarians. Readers will vote for their favorite book during Ontario Public Library Week (October 16-22, 2006) through library Web sites and branch ballot boxes. Between now and then, the shortlisted books will be promoted in libraries provincewide.

To be eligible for the Evergreen Award, books must be by a living Canadian author, and can be either fiction or nonfiction. Sawyer's Hominids is the only genre-fiction novel to make the shortlist this year. Last year's winner was the novel Crow Lake by Mary Lawson.

At 12.5 million people, Ontario is the most-populous of Canada's ten provinces -- home to four out of every ten Canadians. It contains both Canada's capital city of Ottawa and its largest city, Toronto; the 99-branch Toronto Public Library -- just one of the systems participating in the Evergreen Award program -- is the busiest public-library system in North America, with 325,000 patrons borrowing over half a million books each week.

The complete short list, alphabetical by author last name, is:

Three Day Road
by Joseph Boyden
Fiction
Penguin, 2005

The Greek for Love
by James Chatto
Nonfiction (travel memoir)
Random House Canada, 2005

An Audience Of Chairs
by Joan Clark
Fiction
Alfred A. Knopf, 2005

Snowshoes and Spotted Dick: Letters From a Wilderness Dweller
by Chris Czajkowski
Nonfiction (memoir letters)
Harbour Pub., 2003

Sweetness In The Belly
by Camilla Gibb
Fiction
Doubleday Canada, 2005

The Girls
by Lori Lansens
Fiction
Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2005

Race Against Time
by Stephen Lewis
Nonfiction (CBC Massey Lectures)
Anansi, 2005

Lady Franklin's Revenge
by Ken McGoogan.
Nonfiction (Biography)
HarperCollins Canada, 2005

Paul Moves Out
by Michel Rabagliati
Young-Adult Fiction
Drawn & Quarterly, 2005

Hominids
by Robert J. Sawyer
Science Fiction
Tor Books, 2002

Hominids previously won the World Science Fiction Society's Hugo Award -- the top international prize for SF writing -- and was the "One Book, One Community" choice for Waterloo Region (consisting of the Ontario cities of Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge, and surrounding communities) in 2005. Sawyer is also currently a finalist for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's Nebula Award for Best Novella of the Year.

Sawyer, 45, was born in Ottawa and now lives in Mississauga, Ontario. Hominids was his thirteenth novel; his latest -- number sixteen -- is MINDSCAN. Both are published by Tor Books, New York, and distributed in Canada by H.B. Fenn and company.

Information about the Evergreen Award is here:

http://www.accessola.com/site/showPage.cgi?page=reading/evergreen/index.html

The online version of the shortlist is here:

http://www.accessola.com/site/showPage.cgi?page=reading/evergreen/selections/2006.html

Information on Hominids:

http://www.sfwriter.com/exho.htm

Book Club discussion group guide for Hominids:

http://www.sfwriter.com/rgho.htm