The American Library Association (ALA) has selected The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka, a non-genre novel, as the winner of the 2023 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong as the winner of the 2023 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. The selections were announced on January 29 at the Reference and User Services Association’s Book and Media Awards (BMAs) event on Sunday, January 29, during LibLearnX: The Library Learning Experience in New Orleans.

The Carnegie Awards, established in 2012, serve as a guide to help adults select quality reading material. They are the first single-book awards for adult books given by ALA and reflect the expert judgment and insight of library professionals and booksellers who work closely with adult readers.

Ed Yong’s groundbreaking work of sensory biology and animal behavior, An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us, examines animals’ unique perceptual abilities, like the platypus with a bill that detects electric fields, the echolocation prowess of bats and dolphins, the ultrafast vision of killer flies, and the outstanding olfaction of elephants. Yong’s scientific curiosity is contagious, and his writing is empathetic, impeccably researched, imaginative, and entertaining.

Carnegie Medal winners each receive $5,000. All the finalists will be honored and the winners will be presented with their medals during a celebratory event at the American Writers Museum in Chicago during ALA’s 2023 Annual Conference in June.

[Based on a press release.]