Congratulations Nautilus Winners and Finalists for the 2003 Nautilus Awards

We are pleased to announce the finalists for the third annual Nautilus Awards, honoring books published in the year 2002 that contribute significantly to conscious living and positive social change.

Our thanks to all the publishers who submitted titles for consideration. This list of finalists represents the best of an extraordinary collection of books, and articulates beautifully what the Nautilus Award stands for.

Winners were announced on Thursday May 29th at NAPRA’s Nautilus Awards Ceremony and Networking Gathering at the Los Angeles Marriott.

OVERALL WINNER

Small Wonder
by Barbara Kingsolver
($23.95hc, 0-06-050407-2, HarperCollins).

In this collection of essays Kingsolver explores the terrain between grief and hope, between the intimate details of daily life and the vast problems of a world out of balance. She articulates a paradigm of values in which politics is personal and in which the lines between spirituality, environmentalism, and social consciousness are blurred, crafting a compelling challenge to the status quo of 21st-century America. Kingsolver also backs up that challenge with action: by funding her own fiction prize, the Bellwether, for new books dedicated to social change, by insisting that proceeds from a recent book tour benefit independent bookstores and environmental organizations around the country, and by donating royalties from this book to organizations such as Physicians for Social Responsibility and Habitat for Humanity. Because she explores questions of right livelihood with intelligence, honesty, and humility, Barbara Kingsolver’s legions of readers come to care about the answers. We are pleased to present the 2003 Overall Nautilus Award to Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver. [top]

CREATIVITY/ART/MUSIC

Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet
by Matthew Fox
($21.95hc, 1-58542-178-2, Tarcher/Putnam).

As defined by Matthew Fox, creativity is nothing less than the essence of our humanity. At a time when art and the artistic process feel increasingly undervalued, Fox champions the importance of creativity to the inner life. His meditation on how to connect with the Divine, creative spirit helps to restore a valuable asset to the cause of diversity and the pursuit of truth. [top]

HEALTH & HEALING

New Menopausal Years the Wise Woman Way
by Susun Weed
($12.95, 1-888123-03-6, Ash Tree Publishing).

The master herbalist provides a cornucopia of wisdom about the transition of menopause. This book is an overflowing, magnificently stocked cupboard of information: remedies, advice, and inspiration. And it’s a book designed to be used by any woman anywhere for healing, communing with, and understanding themselves. [top]

ECOLOGY/ENVIRONMENT

The Lost Language of Plants: The Ecological Importance of Plant Medicines to Life on Earth
by Stephen Harrod Buhner
($19.95, 1-890132-88-8, Chelsea Green).

Buhner’s warnings about the truly frightening hidden ecological cost of the pharmaceutical industry are framed within a love song for medicinal flora. As he inspires his readers to a passionate appreciation for the wisdom and inestimable value of plants, he also demonstrates how to open one’s heart to the great wound that is our separation from the natural world.

PARENTING

The Common Thread: Mothers, Daughters, and the Power of Empathy
by Martha Manning
($25.95hc, 0-380-97719-2, William Morrow).

Mother and daughter bonds, in certain respects, bear upon all relationships, prefiguring aspects of our ways of relating to others, including fathers and sons. With penetrating insights culled from today’s headlines, literature, pop culture, and, most importantly, human experience, Manning’s thoughtful analysis helps readers find their way through the twin labyrinths of parenthood and childhood and supports us in cultivating empathy—a quality essential for anyone who has a parent—or is a parent—and one with broader (dare we say global?) applications as well. [top]

PERSONAL JOURNEY/MEMOIR

Hannah’s Gift: Lessons from a Life Fully Lived
by Maria Housden
($17.95hc, 0-553-80210-0, Bantam).

What sets this book apart is the precision of Housden’s insight; the chronicle of her daughter’s short life flows seamlessly from one touching anecdote to the next, carried along by Housden’s perceptiveness and soulful equanimity. By its end, her readers feel not only as if they’ve known Hannah themselves, but that she has given them a gift as well: a reminder that it is in the moments of life--the intense or the ordinary, the painful moments or the pleasant ones--that we are offered the gift of living truthfully and joyfully, with faith and compassion and wonder. [top]

SOCIAL CHANGE (tie)

Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet
by Frances Moore Lappé and Anna Lappé
($26.95, 1-58542-149-9, Tarcher/Putnam)

. Frances Moore Lappé (with the help of daughter Anna) picks up the thread of her best-selling Diet for a Small Planet, examining some of the global forces that bear on issues of food security, environmental destruction, and social injustice. In their journey over several continents, through their encounters with people who are confronted daily with the tragic underside of globalization, they uncover some of the misconceptions that have fed our current crises. They also find hopeful signs that a new vision is forthcoming. [top]

Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising
by Starhawk
($17.95, 0-86571-456-8, New Society Press).

Writing from the front lines of the global justice movement, Wiccan wise-woman activist Starhawk speaks with the urgency of a clarion call. She teaches masterfully how to harness not only our intellect, but our creativity, our spirituality, our voice, and our feet to the cause of social change. Her insight into globalization’s shortcomings and the meaning and power of non-violent resistance is brilliant, and she not only walks her talk, she sings it, dances it, and shouts it. Webs of Power, like all of New Society’s offerings, is printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper. [top]

SELF-HELP/PERSONAL GROWTH

The Power of Partnership: Seven Relationships That Will Change Your Life
by Riane Eisler
($23.95hc, 1-57731-178-7, New World Library).

Riane Eisler provides a template for all our relationships—from intimate and familial bonds to the relations we forge with our country, our earth, and our God. Founded on the values of respect, reverence, and compassion, her Partnership Model is both practical and visionary, and brilliantly transcends the self-help genre by teaching us how to become more conscious planetary citizens. [top]

SPIRITUALITY

Learning to Fall: The Blessings of an Imperfect Life
by Philip Simmons
($16.95hc, 0-553-80266-6, Bantam).

In the ten years he lived after being diagnosed with ALS at age 35, Simmons cultivated an understanding of how to live through one’s suffering to a more thoughtful communion with life. He writes beautifully, communicating a personal soul-wisdom drawn from the challenges and joys of his everyday life as well as from an eclectic foundation of spiritual teaching. “At its deepest levels life is not a problem [to be solved] but a mystery,” Simmons writes, and his book proceeds in the spirit of inquiry infused with an acceptance that the mystery will (and should) always remain. [top]

SMALL PRESS/SELF-PUBLISHED

Painted Prayers
by Jody Uttal
($19.95hc, 1-931290-02-4, Tallfellow/Every Picture Press).

Uttal combines words of wisdom from spiritual masters with her own abstract paintings to create this graceful, evocative gift book. Without recourse to words of her own, she demonstrates the essential act of creative response. Her book is both a lovely object of contemplation and an invitation to the reader to meet their own spiritual teachers halfway. [top]

OVERALL CHILDREN'S WINNER

The Real St. Nicholas: Tales of Generosity and Hope from Around the World
by Louise Carus
($22.95, 0-8356-0813-1, Quest Books).

The historical Nicholas traveled to many countries, and legends attesting his generous and sometimes miraculous assistance can be found in far-flung nooks and crannies. Through assiduous research, Carus unearthed many tales about the benevolent bishop unavailable in English until now, and all of them resonate with the power of heroism and compassion, regardless of culture. Archival illustrations from varied sources add visual interest to this elegantly designed book—one we hope will be part of family holiday celebrations for generations to come. [top]

CHILDREN'S PICTURE BOOK

The Story of Divaali
by Jatinder Verma,
illustrated by Nilesh Mistry
($16.99,1-84148-936-0, Barefoot Books).

One of the world’s most fascinating epics, The Ramayana, is the foundation of the Hindu Divaali, or Festival of Light celebration that Hindus, Thai Buddhists, and others celebrate in November of every year. Until now, however, the story has not been widely available to North American children. Verma’s rich retelling of the victory of light over darkness resounds with dynamic images and strong ideals perfectly reflected in Mistry’s graceful illustrations, leaving one with the sense that, ultimately, all will be well. [top]

CHILDREN'S NON-FICTION

If the World Were a Village: A Book About the World’s People
by David J. Smith,
ill. by Shelagh Armstrong
($15.95, 155074-779-7, Kids Can Press).

What if we imagined the population of the world as a village of 100 people with each individual representing 62 million of the world’s people? Thes 100 people would be a cross-section of the world’s diversity—in terms of wealth (including livestock), education, family size, religion, and so on. Provocative facts and figures and gaily colored pictures clearly show that most of what we assume are necessities, are luxuries for the great majority of the world’s people. (Only 24 would have enough to eat despite the fact that there are 189 chickens). This book can’t help but foster lively and meaningful discussion across generations. [top]

YOUNG ADULT

A Foreign Field
by Gillian Chan
($16.95, 1-55337-349-9, Kids Can Press).

A young Canadian girl falls in love with a British pilot who dies in action. Their story is captured in a combination of letters and narrative spanning the years of the Second World War with a final chapter that takes place fifty years later. The keen edge on Chan’s writing enables her to convey the challenges of war and the strain it puts on personal relationships without being unduly sentimental. Her story does not glorify nor decry war, but speaks deeply to the enduring ability of the human heart to love and grow despite fearful difficulties. [top

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