Purpose / Mission Statement

"The purpose of the award is to recognize and honor one book, selected from among all the books published in any one calendar year, which has made an outstanding contribution to the body of printed materials about Idaho. The award is intended to encourage the writing and publishing of books about Idaho, and to encourage excellence in writing and high standards of accuracy and readability in those books."

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Book Award News

A book about Idaho’s only Frank Lloyd Wright building  won Idaho Book of the Year honors for 2007. In At Nature’s Edge Henry Whiting recounts the discovery and restoration of the artist studio designed and built for western painter Archie Teater and his artist wife, Pat.

Author Henry Whiting traveled to the ILA Annual Conference in Idaho Falls to receive the award.  Whiting is an architectural writer who lives and works in the restored and updated Teater studio overlooking the Snake River near Bliss.  In addition to providing detailed descriptions of the studio and its architectural evolution, Whiting’s book serves as a memoir of his own artistic journey.  Purchasing and restoring the studio led Whiting to revisit his family roots, to form lifelong friendships, and to identify his bride, artist Lynn Fawcett Whiting. 

The ILA Book Award Committee selected At Nature’s Edge: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Artist Studio from a field of dozens of literary works.  Each year the Idaho Book of the Year recognizes a work that makes an outstanding contribution to Idaho literature.

Also recognized with an Honorable Mention was Ron Carlson’s novel entitled Five Skies, published by Viking Penguin.  Like the Whiting book, Five Skies is set in southern Idaho’s Snake River country.