2005 Book Sense Book of the Year Winner: Shadow Divers

"Robert Kurson tells the story of a close-knit band of deep-sea wreck divers trying to determine the identity of a Nazi sub sunk off the New Jersey coast," said bookseller Peter Guadagni of Bonanza Books in Clayton, California. " Shadow Divers combines a moving story of personal relationships with an inside look into a world most of us will never experience. I couldn't put it down." --From the July 2004 Book Sense Picks

On April 12, the American Booksellers Association announced that Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of WWII by Robert Kurson (Random House) was the winner of the 2005 Book Sense Book of the Year in the Adult Nonfiction category. The award honors independent booksellers' handselling favorite during the past year, as voted by the owners and staff of ABA member bookstores. All BookExpo America (BEA) attendees are invited to ABA's annual Celebration of Bookselling on Friday, June 3, at New York's Jacob Javits Convention Center, where Kurson, and this year's Book Sense Book of the Year winners for Fiction, Children's Literature, and Children's Illustrated, will be honored.

Shadow Divers was a Book Sense Pick in July 2004. It also appeared on 2004's Book Sense Picks Highlights list and was a Book Sense Bestseller for 2004. The paperback edition will be available on May 31. Shadow Divers is also available as an abridged CD from Random House Audio.

With all the drama and tension of a battle story, journalist Kurson dissects the discovery and identification of a German Type IX U-boat, which lay 230 feet underwater, 60 miles off the coast of New Jersey. Long thought to have been sunk in waters off Gibralter in 1945, U-869 was found by two recreational scuba divers, John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, who were mentored by washed-up former diver Bill Nagle. After a perilous six-year search, which resulted in the deaths of three other divers, the two former rivals became allied in their search for the wreck's provenance, as well as in their desire to contact survivors of the victims. The identification of U-869 forced alterations in the historical record of World War II. Considered in league with Sebastian Unger's Perfect Storm and Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, Shadow Divers combines in-depth research, military history, science, and mystery with heart-thumping adventure.

Robert Kurson earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin, then a law degree from Harvard Law School. After working as a features reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago magazine, he moved to Esquire as a contributing editor. His award-winning stories have also appeared in Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, and other publications. Kurson had previously written two books about the Three Stooges.

Kurson will also be honored at the Book Sense Author Luncheon on Friday at BEA. The luncheon, which is only open to stores with Book Sense, requires an e-mail confirmation of reservation for admittance. Confirmations will be sent to registered booksellers by May 16. Unfortunately, reservations are no longer being accepted for this event, which is booked to capacity.