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Alan Weisman's "The World Without Us" has resonated with audiences and booksellers alike.

By University Communications
April 3, 2008

“The World Without Us,” written by University of Arizona journalism professor Alan Weisman, continues to earn kudos.

The book, which theorizes what the planet would look like if all humans vanished, has been named a "distinguished finalist" for the 2008 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize.

The award is administered by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University.

Judges chose to honor the book from among 125 books submitted for the prize, which recognizes, according to Columbia University’s Web site, “superb examples of nonfiction writing that exemplify the literary grace, the commitment to serious research, and the social concern that characterized the distinguished work of the award's namesake, J. Anthony Lukas.”

In addition, the American Booksellers Association announced in “Bookselling This Week” that it gave "The World Without Us" a 2008 Honor Award in the Adult Nonfiction category. The group also chose the book as among its favorite “hand sells” of 2007. Hand sells are books that are personally recommended and sold by independent booksellers to their customers.

Weisman also has been named a finalist for the 2008 Orion Book Award. The Orion Book Award is conferred annually to an outstanding, literary, book-length work that is ecological in context and has as its foundation the human relationship with the natural world.

The winner will be announced in early April and presented on April 16 in New York City. Weisman shares the honor with UA journalism colleague Mort Rosenblum, who also was nominated for the award. In 2007 Rosenblum published his 13th book, “Escaping Plato’s Cave: How America’s Blindness to the Rest of the World Threatens Our Survival.”