The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association announced the winners of their 2008 awards today; six titles were chosen from the almost 200 nominees:

• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
by Sherman Alexie of Seattle, WA (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
Alexie’s book has already won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature and looks like at least an honor book, if not the winner, for the American Library Association’s Printz Award. Suzi Steffen reviewed Alexie’s novel in our Winter Reading issue.

• Returning To Earth
by Jim Harrison, who spends part of his year in Paradise Valley, Montana (Grove Press)

• Tree of Smoke
by Denis Johnson of Northern Idaho (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Hey, I didn’t know Denis Johnson was a Northwest writer! That’s pretty cool. For Chuck Adams’ take on Johnson’s National Book Award-winning novel, see our Winter Reading issue.

• Dancing With Rose: Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer’s
by Lauren Kessler of Eugene, OR (Viking)
UO professor Kessler’s book was reviewed by Lois Wadsworth when it came out in May.

• The God of Animals
by Aryn Kyle of Missoula, MT (Scribner)

• Bad Monkeys
by Matt Ruff of Seattle, WA (HarperCollins)
Now where did my copy of this one go?