Past Winners

2022: Tinghui Zhang, Jenny. Four Treasures of the Sky, Flatiron Books, 2022.

2021 - Fiction: Doerr, Anthony. Cloud Cuckoo Land, Simon & Schuster, 2021.

2021 - Non-Fiction: Sarah Sentilles. Stranger Care: A Memoir of Loving What Isn't Ours, Penguin Random House, 2021.

2020: Lewis, Reed, McFaddan, Mark, Burch, John, and Feeney, Chelsea McRaven. Idaho Rocks! A Guide to Geologic Sites in the Gem State, Mountain Press Publishing Company, 2020.

2019: Quinney, Dana Stewart. Wildflower Girl: A Lifelong Journey beyond the Trail. McCall, Idaho: Hidden Shelf Publishing House, 2019.

2018: Owens, Delia. Where the Crawdads Sing. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2018.

2017: Ruskovich, Emily. Idaho: a Novel. New York : Random House, 2017.

2016: Feldman, Murray; and Jennifer Emery Davidson. Idaho Wilderness Considered.  Boise, Idaho: Idaho Humanities Council, 2016.

2015: Stuebner, Steve; and Todd Shallat. Idaho Microbes: how tiny single-celled organisms can harm, or save, our world. Boise, Idaho: Boise State University, School of Public Service and Division of Research and Economic Development, 2015.

2014: Doerr, Anthony. All the Light We Cannot See. New York: Scribner, 2014.

2013: Wegars, Priscilla. As Rugged as the Terrain: CCC “Boys,” Federal Convicts, and World War II Alien Internees Wrestle with a Mountain Wilderness.  Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Press, 2013.

2012: Swetnam, Susan H. Books, Bluster, and Bounty: Local Politics and Carnegie Library Building Grants in the Intermountain West, 1890-1920. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 2012.

2011: No titles were submitted.

2010: Udall, Brady. The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010.

2009: Wieland, Mitch. God’s Dogs: A Novel in Stories. Dallas, Texas: Southern Methodist University Press, 2009.

2008: Percy, Ann. James Castle: A Retrospective. Philadelphia, Pensylvannia: Philadelphia Museum of Art; New Haven Connecticut: In association with Yale University Press, 2008.

2007: Whiting, Henry II. At Nature’s Edge: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Artist Studio. Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, 2007.

2006: Scherer, Joanna Cohan. A Danish Photographer of Idaho Indians: Benedicte Wrensted. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 2006.

2005: Olsen, Gregg. The Deep Dark: Disaster and Redemption in the America’s Richest Silver Mine. New York: Crown Publishers, 2005

2004: Hilldorfer, Joseph; and Robert Dugoni. The Cyanide Canary. New York: Free Press, 2004.

2003: Rember, John. Traplines: coming home to Sawtooth Valley. New York: Pantheon Books, 2003.

2002: Shallat, Todd, editor. The Secrets of the Magic Valley and Hagerman’s Remarkable Horse. Boise, Idaho: Black Canyon Communications, 2002.

2001: Freeman-Toole, T. Louise. Standing up to the Rock. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2001.

2000: Johnson, William C. Out of the Ruins. Lewiston, Idaho: Confluence Press; Kansas City, Kansas: Distributed by Midpoint Trade Books, 2000.

1999: Fiege, Mark. Irrigated Eden: The Making of an Agricultural Landscape in the American West. Seattle, Washington: University of Washington Press, 1999.

1998: Peek, Pat Cary. One Winter in the Wilderness. Moscow, Idaho: University of Idaho Press, 1998.

1997: Lukas, J. Anthony. Big Trouble: A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets Off a Struggle for the Soul of America. New York, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.

1996: James, Caroline. Nez Perce Women in Transition, 1877-1990. Moscow, Idaho: University of Idaho Press, 1996.

1995: Petersen, Keith C. River of Life, Channel of Death: Fish and Dams on the Lower Snake. Lewiston, Idaho: Confluence Press, 1995.

1994: Nisbet, Jack. Sources of the River: Tracking David Thompson Across Western North America. Seattle, Washington: Sasquatch Books, 1994.

1993: Hedberg, Kathleen. A Flood Cannot Happen Here: The Story of Lower Goose Creek Reservoir, Oakley Idaho, 1984. Burley, Idaho: Magic Valley Publishers, 1993.

1992: No award was given.

1991: Attebery, Jennifer Eastman. Building Idaho: An Architectural History. Moscow, Idaho: University of Idaho Press, 1991.

1990: Stacy, Susan M. Conversations: A Companion Book to Idaho Public Television’s “Proceeding on through a Beautiful Country, a History of Idaho”. Boise, Idaho: Idaho Educational Public Broadcasting Foundation, 1990.

1989: Woodward, Tim. Tiger on the Road: The Life of Vardis Fisher. Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Printers, 1989.

1988: Stapilus, Randy. Paradox Politics: People and Power in Idaho. Boise, Idaho: Ridenbaugh Press, 1988.

1987: Petersen, Keith C. This Crested Hill: An Illustrated History of the University of Idaho. Moscow, Idaho: University of Idaho Press, 1987.

1986: Maguire, James H., editor. The Literature of Idaho: An Anthology. Boise, Idaho: Hemingway Western Studies, Boise State University, 1986.

1985: Attebery, Louie W.; and Brian Attebery. Idaho Folklife: Homesteads to Headstones. Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press; Boise, Idaho: Idaho State Historical Society, 1985.

1984: Hart, Patricia; and Ivar Nelson. Mining Town: The Photographic Record of T.N. Barnard and Nellie Stockbridge from the Coeur d’Alenes. Seattle, Washington: University of Washington Press; Boise, Idaho: Idaho State Historical Society, 1984.