Barnes & Noble has announced that Mona’s Eyes, written by Thomas Schlesser and translated by Hildegarde Serle, is its Book of the Year.
Mona’s Eyes, published in August by Europa Editions, is about a 10-year-old girl who visits museums across Paris with her grandfather every Wednesday for a year before she loses her sight. A critic for Kirkus called the novel “a pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.”
“Beautiful inside and out, with its fifty-two featured masterpieces showcased inside the fold-out dust jacket and leaping off the page, this moving novel about a brave young girl’s Paris museum adventures with her grandfather celebrates imagination and the bonds between generations,” the bookseller said in a statement.
Barnes & Noble also named a Gift Book of the Year, Samin Nosrat’s Good Things: Recipes and Rituals To Share With People You Love, which it praised as “not just a cookbook, but a unique guide to forming a deeper sense of connection through food.”
Two books were honored as Children’s Books of the Year: I Am Rebel by Ross Montgomery and Growing Home, written by Beth Ferry and illustrated by Eric Fan and Terry Fan.
Previous winners of the Book of the Year honor include Bonnie Garmus’ Lessons in Chemistry, James McBride’s The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, and Percival Everett’s James.
A list of the 14 finalists for the Barnes & Noble Book of the Year is available on the bookseller’s website.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
