The finalists for the 2011 Orion Book Award were announced today. The five finalists are:

BECOMING ANIMAL: AN EARTHLY COSMOLOGY, by David Abram (Pantheon Books)

ABOUT A MOUNTAIN, by John D’Agata (W. W. Norton)

INSECTOPEDIA, by Hugh Raffles (Pantheon Books)

THE TIGER: A TRUE STORY OF VENGEANCE AND SURVIVAL, by John Vaillant (Alfred A. Knopf)

DEEP BLUE HOME: AN INTIMATE ECOLOGY OF OUR WILD OCEAN, by Julia Whitty (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Find out more and learn about the selection committee at the Orion Book Award homepage.

The winning book will be announced on March 29, and the winner and finalists will be honored at a public event on April 6, 2011, at The powerHouse Arena, 37 Main Street, Brooklyn, NY. The reception will take place between 6-8 p.m.; the awards will be presented at 7 p.m. The winner will receive a cash prize of $3,000 and the finalists will each receive $500.

The Orion Book Award was founded in 2007 to recognize books that deepen humanity’s connection to the natural world, present new ideas about our relationship with nature, and achieve excellence in writing. The 2011 Award is made possible in part by generous support from Organic Valley.

Over one hundred books published in 2010 were considered for the 2011 Award. The finalists were chosen by a selection committee consisting of chairperson Ginger Strand (author of Inventing Niagara: Beauty, Power, and Lies); Robin Wall Kimmerer (Distinguished Professor at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry); Verlyn Klinkenborg (member of the editorial board of the New York Times); Richard Nash (founder of the Cursor publishing communities); and Jennifer Sahn (Editor, Orion).