The City of Vancouver Book Award is a Canadian literary award, that has been presented annually by the city of Vancouver, British Columbia to one or more works of literature judged as the year's best fiction, non-fiction, poetry or drama work about the city.
As with the City of Toronto Book Award, the award may go to one or more books.
The award has a monetary value of $3,000. The prize is funded by interest earned from the city's publishing reserve, which was established in 1977 as a permanent legacy for writers and publishers. The fund received royalties generated from Vancouver's First Century: A Photo History of Vancouver, edited by city staff. The third edition of the book, renamed Vancouver: A City Album, for many years generated royalty payments for the fund.
| 1989 | Saltwater City: An Illustrated History of the Chinese in Vancouver | Winner | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Disappearing Moon Cafe | Winner | ||
| Being Brown: A Very Public Life | Finalist | |||
| Buddy's: Meditations on Desire | Finalist | |||
| Finalist | ||||
| 1991 | Vanishing Vancouver | Winner | ||
| Leonard Frank: An Enterprising Life | Finalist | |||
| Robin Ward's Vancouver | Finalist | |||
| 1992 | Trees of Vancouver: A Guide to the Common and Unusual Trees of the City | Winner | ||
| No Forwarding Address | Finalist | |||
| Hidden Cities | Finalist | |||
| Flesh Wound | Finalist | |||
| and Graeme Wynn | Vancouver and Its Regions | Finalist | ||
| 1993 | Vancouver: A Visual History | Winner | ||
| Finalist | ||||
| and John Atkin | Heritage Walks Around Vancouver | Finalist | ||
| 1994 | Winner | |||
| and Karl Spreitz | Vancouver: Visions of a City | Finalist | ||
| Robin Ward's Heritage West Coast | Finalist | |||
| Line Screw | Finalist | |||
| 1995 | Earle Birney: A Life | Winner | ||
| and Cynthia Nugent | Mister Got to Go | Finalist | ||
| and Robert Davidson | Eagle Transforming: The Art of Robert Davidson | Finalist | ||
| 1996 | Winner | |||
| Monday Night Man | Finalist | |||
| Making Vancouver: Class, Status & Social Boundaries 1863-1913 | Finalist | |||
| 1997 | Winner | |||
| Vancouver at the Dawn: A Turn-of-the-Century Portrait | Finalist | |||
| and Bob Scullion | Postcards from the Past: Edwardian Images of Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley | Finalist | ||
| 1998 | Winner | |||
| and Ian Macdonald | Finalist | |||
| And a Body to Remember With | Finalist | |||
| 1999 | Keys to Kingdoms | Winner | ||
| and the editors of Vancouver Magazine | Vancouver: Secrets of the City | Finalist | ||
| White Lung | Finalist | |||
| 2000 | and Donald Luxton | Lions Gate | Winner | |
| and Collin Varner | Gardens of Vancouver | Finalist | ||
| Paper Shadows: A Chinatown Childhood | Finalist | |||
| Finalist | ||||
| 2001 | Simple Recipes | Winner | ||
| City of Glass: Douglas Coupland's Vancouver | Finalist | |||
| Stanley Park | Finalist | |||
| (ed.) | Susan Point: Coast Salish Artist | Finalist | ||
| 2002 | Winner | |||
| Burrard Inlet: A History | Finalist | |||
| Finalist | ||||
| Making a Stone of the Heart | Finalist | |||
| 2003 | , Ken Dietrich-Campbell, Patricia Canning and Elaine Allan | Heroines | Winner | |
| (ed.) | Stan Douglas: Every Building on 100 Block West Hastings | Winner | ||
| and Bob Turner | Vancouver, City on the Edge: Living with a Dynamic Geological Landscape | Finalist | ||
| Intimate Distances | Finalist | |||
| 2004 | L.D.: Mayor Louis Taylor and the Rise of Vancouver | Winner | ||
| Finalist | ||||
| Finalist | ||||
| Sitting Practice | Honourable mention | |||
| Honourable mention | ||||
| Missing Sarah: A Vancouver Woman Remembers Her Vanished Sister | Honourable mention | |||
| 2005 | Dream City: Vancouver and the Global Imagination | Winner | ||
| All That Matters | Finalist | |||
| and Dara Culhane (eds.) | In Plain Sight: Reflections on Life in Downtown Eastside Vancouver | Finalist | ||
| Various | Finalist | |||
| 2006 | Stanley Park's Secret: The Forgotten Families of Whoi Whoi, Kanaka Ranch, and Brockton Point | Winner | ||
| Waterfront: The Illustrated Maritime History of Greater Vancouver | Winner | |||
| Historical Atlas of Vancouver and the Lower Fraser Valley | Finalist | |||
| , Ian M. Thom, and Adele Weder | B.C. Binning | Finalist | ||
| 2007 | Vancouver Remembered | Winner | ||
| and Michael Turner | Fred Herzog: Vancouver Photographs | Finalist | ||
| Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? | Finalist | |||
| Finalist | ||||
| 2008 | and Gillian Jerome | Hope in Shadows: Stories and Photographs of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside | Winner | |
| Falsework | Finalist | |||
| At Home With History: The Untold Secrets of Greater Vancouver's Heritage Homes | Finalist | |||
| Finalist | ||||
| 2009 | Winner | |||
| In the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts | Finalist | |||
| Nightmarker | Finalist | |||
| 2010 | and Scott Steedman | Visions of British Columbia | Winner | |
| Finalist | ||||
| Common Ground in a Liquid City | Finalist | |||
| Finalist | ||||
| 2011 | Winner | |||
| Whoever Gives Us Bread: The Story of Italians in British Columbia | Finalist | [2] | ||
| After Canaan: Essays on Race, Writing, and Region | Finalist | |||
| Vancouver Kids | Finalist | |||
| 2012 | YVR | Winner | ||
| and Elee Kraljii Gardiner (eds.) | V6A: Writing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside | Finalist | [3] | |
| At the World's Edge: Curt Lang's Vancouver | Finalist | |||
| Undesirables: White Canada and the Komagata Maru | Finalist | |||
| Finalist | ||||
| 2013 | How Poetry Saved My Life: A Hustler's Memoir | Winner | [4] | |
| Finalist | ||||
| Ink on Paper | Finalist | |||
| and Robin Ward | Exploring Vancouver: The Architectural Guide | Finalist | ||
| Inventing Stanley Park: An Environmental History | Finalist | |||
| 2014 | Arthur Erickson: An Architect's Life | Winner | ||
| What Makes Olga Run? | Finalist | [5] | ||
| How Does a Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun? | Finalist | |||
| Anatomy of a Girl Gang: A Novel | Finalist | |||
| Artificial Cherry | Finalist | |||
| 2015 | Winner | [6] [7] | ||
| Live at the Commodore: The Story of Vancouver's Historic Commodore Ballroom | Finalist | |||
| Hastings-Sunrise: Poems | Finalist | |||
| and Cynthia Nugent | Mister Got To Go, Where Are You? | Finalist | ||
| 2016 | , Karen Duffek, and Tania Willard | Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun: Unceded Territories | Winner | [8] |
| and Renée Sarojini Saklikar (eds.) | Finalist | [9] | ||
| That Lonely Section of Hell: The Botched Investigation of a Serial Killer Who Almost Got Away | Finalist | |||
| 2017 | Bad Endings | Winner | [10] | |
| , Ian M. Thom, Susan Point, Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse, Thomas Cannell, Myrtle McKay, and William McLennan | Susan Point: Spindle Whorl | Finalist | ||
| Pandas on the Eastside | Finalist | |||
| Invisible Dead | Finalist | |||
| 2018 | Dear Current Occupant | Winner | [11] | |
| Fighting for Space: How a Group of Drug Users Transformed One City's Struggle with Addiction | Finalist | |||
| Sitting Shiva on Minto Avenue, by Toots | Finalist | |||
| Sustenance: Writers from BC and Beyond on the Subject of Food | Finalist | |||
| 2019 | and Susan Point | People among the People: The public art of Susan Point | Winner | |
| Finalist | ||||
| Murder by Milkshake: An Astonishing True Story of Adultery, Arsenic, and a Charismatic Killer | Finalist | |||
| No Fixed Address | Finalist | |||
| Port of Being | Finalist | |||
| 2020 | Chinatown Through a Wide Lens: The Hidden Photographs of Yucho Chow | Winner | [12] | |
| on/me | Finalist | [13] | ||
| Vancouver for Beginners | Finalist | |||
| 2021 | Five Little Indians | Winner | ||
| Finalist | ||||
| and Anna Bron | Salma the Syrian Chef | Finalist | ||
| Ho Sun Hing Printers | Honourable mention | |||
| 2022 | , Bill McLennan, and Jordan Wilson | Where the Power Is: Indigenous Perspectives on Northwest Coast Art | Winner | |
| Erase and Rewind | Finalist | [14] | ||
| No Shelter | Finalist | |||
| Chiru Sakura: Falling Cherry Blossoms | Finalist | |||
| Debbie Cheung & Christopher Lee, Occupying Chinatown | Finalist |