It is with great pride that we provide the announced list of the 2008 Kansas Notable Books!  This list compiles some of the best writing about or by Kansans in the preceding year.  A committee of the Kansas Center For the Book  is responsible for identifying the titles to forward to the State Librarian for final decision. This year’s Kansas Notable Books selection committee included representatives from  academic, public and regional libraries, authors, booksellers, publishers, and the media.

The Kansas Notable Book authors will be honored at a reception hosted by the State Library of Kansas late this summer, and again at an evening reception at the Reading Festival in Lawrence on September 27. 
 
The alphabetical list by title of the 2008 Kansas Notable Books follow:
 
1. American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in the New China, by Matthew Polly.
2. The Boy Who Was Raised by Librarians, Brad Sneed, illustrator.
3. Can I Keep My Jersey? 11 Teams, 5 Countries, and 4 Years in My Life as a Basketball Vagabond, by Paul Shirley.
4. The Curse of Catunkhamun, by Tim Raglin. 
5. The Farther Shore, by Matthew Eck.
6. From Emporia: The Story of William Allen White, by Beverley O. Buller.
7. Hellfire Canyon, by Max McCoy.
8. Hunger for the Wild: America’s Obsession with the Untamed West, by Michael L. Johnson.
9. The Kitchen Sink: New and Selected Poems, 1972-2007, by Albert Goldbarth.
10. A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution, by David A. Nichols.
11. The Middle of Somewhere, by J. B. Cheaney.
12. The Rest of Her Life, by Laura Moriarty.
13. Sea Monsters: Prehistoric Creatures of the Deep, by Michael J. Everhart.
14. Storm Chaser: A Photographer’s Journey, by Jim Reed.
15. Writing in an Age of Silence, by Sara Paretsky.

Read more about Kansas Notable Books at the Kansas Center for the Book website.