Nautilus Book Awards - Books For Living Your Best Life Now

The Nautilus Book Awards, conceived to recognize and reward such world-changing books, distinguishes 24 categories of writing in both adult and children’s titles.
The program also celebrates independent presses and self-published titles with a special award for the best title from a Small Press. Each year we showcase these creative and inspirational books in our booth at BookExpo America, where many of our Winning authors come to sign their books. This year Publisher’s Weekly will officially announce the Nautilus Book Awards Gold Winners in the PW Show Daily on May 31, 2008 at the BEA. We are once again proud to announce the winners in the June issues of New Leaf’s elegant publication, Evolve! Magazine.

Each year we are grateful to have a sponsor/partner to help us with the myriad details of this program. This year we are grateful to Jim Barnes of Independent Publishers Online for receiving, sorting and tracking all of the books submitted. Our thanks as well go to the many publishers who submitted their titles for consideration. This list of Winners and Finalists represents the best of an extraordinary collection of books.

THE 2008 GOLD WINNERS ARE ...

	SMALL PRESS GOLD WINNER GETTING A GRIP Clarity, Creativity and Courage in a World Gone Mad Frances Moore Lappe’ Small Planet Media *Getting a Gripwill connect your personal passions and concerns with actions that you can take—right now*—to help create the kind of world that we all want. Bestselling author Frances Moore Lappé states her intent “...to enable us to see what is happening all round us but is still invisible to most of us”.

	ANIMALS / NATURE THE EMOTIONAL LIVES OF ANIMALS By Mark Bekoff New World Library As an award-winning scientist, Mark Bekoff skillfully blends extraordinary stories and anecdotes of animal grief, joy, embarrassment, anger, and love with the latest scientific research confirming the existence of emotions that commonsense experience has long implied. Filled with Bekoff's light humor and touching stories, The Emotional Lives of Animals is a clarion call for reassessing both how we view animals and how we treat them.

	ART – SPECIALTY - GIFT BUDDHAS, BODHISATTVAS, KHADROMAS AND THE WAY OF THE PILGRIM A Transformative Book of Photography and Pithy Sayings Simhananda Orange Palm Publications A stunning photographic journey that unveils the changing face of Buddhism throughout the ages. Each photograph that composes this remarkable work of art, is accompanied by a profound thought, translated in three languages (English, French, Italian). Through his superb images and his renowned penmanship, Simhananda leads us on an unedited discovery of the universe of the Buddha. This book is the first in a series to come, each one revealing a composition entirely different from the other.

	CHILDREN’S ILLUSTRATED THE DAY THE STONES WALKED BY T.A. Barron Philomel Books / Penguin Young Readers Guide Easter Island gives a dramatic setting to this moving environmental parable. In T.A. Barron’s tale, a young boy finds the courage and wisdom to save his island. But – will we find the courage and wisdom to save our larger island Earth?

	CHILDREN’S / YOUNG ADULT - NON-FICTION THE DOWN-TO-EARTH GUIDE TO GLOBAL WARMING Laurie David and Cambria Gordon Scholastic – Orchid Books Irreverent and entertaining, DOWN TO EARTH is filled with fact about global warming and its disastrous consequences, loads of photos and illustrations, as well as suggestions for how kids can help combat global warming in their homes, schools, and communities. Engagingly designed, DOWN TO EARTH will educate and empower, leaving readers with the knowledge they need to understand this problem and a sense of hope to inspire them into action.

	CONSCIOUS BUSINESS / LEADERSHIP The ECONOMICS OF HAPPINESS: Building Genuine Wealth Mark Anielski - foreword by Herman Daly New Society Press The Economics of Happiness challenges the gospel of economic growth and the promise of capitalism by presenting a new economic model – “Genuine Wealth” -- based on the premise that economic development can be oriented towards genuine well-being and happiness. Mark Anielski is an ecological economist and president of his family-owned corporation, which specializes in the economics of well-being.

	CONSCIOUS MEDIA / JOURNALISM THIRST Fighting the Corporate Theft of our Water Alan Snitow & Deborah Kaufman with Michael Fox Jossey-Bass In an engaging journalistic style, Thirst reveals the emergence of controversial new water wars and investigates eight high-profile controversies over the corporate takeover of water in the United States, illuminating how and why citizens are fighting back both here and abroad.

	COSMOLOGY / NEW SCIENCE THE MYSTERY OF 2012 Predictions, Prophecies & Possibilities An Anthology Sounds True The Mystery of 2012 is an encompassing investigation of the 2012 phenomenon from Mayan prophecies to scientific predictions – featuring 25 of the most respected and provocative writers in the field.

	ECOLOGY / ENVIRONMENT / SUSTAINABILITY THE BLUE DEATH Disease, Disaster, and the Water We Drink Dr. Robert D. Morris Harper Collins The Blue Death combines the intriguing medical and epidemiological mystery of The Hot Zone and The Band Played On with an alarming warning about the terrible dangers that our current water supply faces every day -- from both natural and outside threats.

	FICTION / VISIONARY FICTION – ADULT BUDDHA A Story of Enlightment Deepak Chopra HarperSanFrancisco Buddha is an inspiring re-imagining of the life of a prince who gave up the trappings of royalty for something much more important–wisdom and enlightenment. This is a new form of teaching for beloved Chopra and with it he brings us closer to understanding the true nature of life and ourselves.

	FICTION / FANTASY – CHILDREN / YOUNG ADULT GAIA GIRLS WAY OF WATER Lee Welles Chelsea Green What would you do if you could hear the Earth asking for help? That is what happens to four girls from different regions of the world in this book. It is the story of a young girl who loses her family to the sea and moves to a new home in Japan. There Gaia grants her powers to connect with the “minds in the water.” And, then the adventure begins.

	FOOD / COOKING / NUTRITION ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE A Year of Food Life Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingslover Harper Collins Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, and complete with original recipes, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle makes a passionate case for putting the kitchen back at the center of family life, and diversified farms at the center of the American diet.

	HEALTH/HEALING/ENERGY MEDICINE THE ENERGY HEALING EXPERIMENTS Science Reveals Our Natural Power to Heal Gary Schwartz Simon & Schuster A healer removes the pain of a broken wrist in fifteen minutes. Another removes an ovarian tumor in a couple of weeks. Still another, thousands of miles away from the patient, regenerates the nerves of a broken spine for a patient on whom the doctors had given up on. These sound like tabloid stories but could they be true? These are just two out of millions of instances where healers have claimed to manipulate energy fields to cure the body.

	HOME / GARDEN & NATURAL LIVING CHINA'S SACRED SITES Nan Shunxun and Beverly Foit-Albert Himalayan Institute Press Far more than the usual coffee-table book, this work serves as an excellent introduction, description, and explanation of traditional Eastern architecture increasingly abandoned and neglected today in the sweep toward modernization. - Library Journal

	INDIGENOUS / MULTICULTURAL WILD: An Elemental Journey Jay Griffiths Jeremy Tarcher/ Penguin In Wild, Jay Griffiths describes an extraordinary odyssey through wildernesses of earth, ice, water, and fire. Part travelogue, part manifesto for wildness as an essential character of life, Wild is a one-of-a-kind book from a one-of-a-kind author.

	MEMOIR / PERSONAL JOURNEY BONES THAT FLOAT A Story of Adopting Cambodia Kari Grady Grossman Wild Heaven Press This rare book, despite its harrowing truths, is an effective and hopeful call to action as “ a nudge to your social conscience that will have you asking, What's my Cambodia? Told with fierce honesty and an affecting voice, Bones that Float is a love story of mother for her child, and a testimony of how love can change the world.

	PARENTING / FAMILY RAISING BABY GREEN The Earth-Friendly Guide to Pregnancy, Childbirth and Baby Care Alan Greene, M.D. Jossey-Bass Raising Baby Green is the first comprehensive guide to help environmentally conscious parents make healthy product and lifestyle choices during pregnancy, childbirth, and the first two years of their child's life. Author Dr. Alan Greene, provides recommendations that parents can refer to regarding protecting their bodies and households from toxic influences in eating habits, cleaning, paints and lotions, eco-friendly diapers and other lifestyle and marketplace choices.

	PERSONAL GROWTH / PSYCHOLOGY LIVING DEEPLY The Art & Science of Transformation in Everyday Life Marilyn Schlitz, Ph.D., Cassandra Vieten, Ph.D., Tina Amorok Ph.D. Noetics Books / New Harbinger Publications Living Deeply, the fruit of IONS’ ongoing investigation into human consciousness, provides compelling insights on how people achieve transformation. The wisdom was gleaned from representatives of many world religions and forms of spirituality, complemented by the latest scientific discoveries.

	SOCIAL CHANGE / ACTIVISM / PEACEFUL SOLUTIONS LOYAL TO THE SKY Marisa Handler Berrett-Koehler In this personal and political narrative, journalist and anti-globalization activist Marisa Handler offers readers both a compelling coming-of-age memoir and eye-opening insights into what's really going on inside the global justice movement. Handler has put her values into action with tenacious creativity. She ably conveys the histories of places many people couldn't find on a map in a lively, moving and funny voice. —Publishers Weekly

	RELIGION SECRETS OF THE LAST MODE OF PRAYER For more than 22 years, Gregg Braden has searched high mountain villages and remote monasteries of the world to reveal a mode of prayer that was lost with the biblical edits of the early Christian Church 17 centuries ago.

	SPIRITUALITY THE LIFE OF MEANING Reflections on Faith, Doubt, and Repairing the World Bob Abernethy and William Bole Forward by Tom Brokaw Seven Stories Press The Life of Meaning, edited by the program’s executive editor and host Bob Abernethy and longtime journalist William Bole, features a collection of insightful, moving and eloquent observations on life and how to live it by some of the most thoughtful men and women in America.

	WORLD CHANGING AUDIO BOOKS LIVING THE FIELD Tapping Into the Secret Force of the Universe Lynne McTaggart Sounds True Practical instruction from the best-selling author of The Field and The Intention Experiment for harnessing the power of the immeasurable energy source called the "Zero-Point Field" for our own empowerment, healing, and transformation.

	YOGA / MASSAGE / BODY MOVEMENT YOGA CALM FOR CHILDREN Educating Heart, Mind and Body Lynea Gillen, MS and Jim Gillen, RYT Filled with photos, illustrations, lesson plans, and inspiring stories, this is the ultimate guide for parents, teachers and other adults who want to help kids manage stress, build social skills and create lifelong healthy habits!"