SoCal book prizes

Happy news for the Angel City Press clan. Santa Monica Beach: A Collector's Pictorial History by Ernest Marquez won the Southern California Booksellers Association award for nonfiction on Saturday night. Ernie is a descendant of the family that owned the original Mexican rancho that extended to the beach. He grew up in Santa Monica Canyon, near his family's adobe and cemetery which still exist there. It's his second book; the first was about the seaport that once served Santa Monica Bay. Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan won in fiction, T. Jefferson Parker's California Girl received the mystery prize and David Shannon's Alice the Fairy picked up the honor in children's books.