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National Book Award Archive



2008
FICTION
Shadow Country
by Peter Matthiessen
NONFICTION
The Hemingeses of Monticello
by Annette Gordon-Reed
POETRY
Fire to Fire
by Mark Doty
YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE
What I Saw and How I Lied
by Judy Blundell




2007
FICTION
Tree of Smoke
by Denis Johnson
NONFICTION
Brother, I'm Dying
by Edwidge Danticat
POETRY
Time and Materials
by Robert Hass
YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE
The Invention of Hugo Cabret
by Brian Selznick




2006
FICTION
The Echo Maker
by Richard Powers
NONFICTION
The Worst hard Time
by Timothy Egan
POETRY
Splay Anthem
by Nathaniel Mackey
YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE
The Astonishing Life Octavian Nothing
by M.T. Anderson




2005
FICTION
Europe Central
by William T. Vollmann
NONFICTION
The Year of Magical Thinking
by Joan Didion
POETRY
Migration
by W.S. Merwin
YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE
The Penderwicks
by Jeanne Birdsall




2004
FICTION
The News from Paraguay
by Lilly Tuck
NONFICTION
Arc of Justice
by Kevin Boyle
POETRY
Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965-2003
by Jean Valentine
YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE
Godless
by Pete Hautman




2003
FICTION
Great Fire
by Shirley Hazzard
NONFICTION
Waiting for Snow in Havana
by Carlos Eire
POETRY
Singing
by C.K. Williams
YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE
The Canning Season
by Polly Horvath




2002
FICTION
Three Junes
by Julia Glass
NONFICTION
Master of the Senate
by Robert A. Caro
POETRY
In the Next Galaxy
by Ruth Stone
YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE
The House of the Scorpion
by Nancy Farmer




2001
FICTION
The Corrections
by Jonathan Franzen
NONFICTION
The Noonday Demon
by Andrew Solomon
POETRY
Poems Seven
by Alan Dugan
YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE
True Believer
by Virginia Euwer Wolff




2000
FICTION
In America
by Susan Sontag
NONFICTION
In the Heart of the Sea
by Nathaniel Philbrick
POETRY
Blessing the Boats
by Lucille Clifton
YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE
Homeless Bird
by Gloria Whelan




1999
FICTION
Waiting
by Ha Jin
NONFICTION
Embracing Defeat
by John W. Dower
POETRY
Vice
by Ai
YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE
When Zachary Beaver Came to Town
by Kimberly Willis Holt




1998
FICTION
Charming Billy
by Alice McDermott
NONFICTION
Slaves in the Family
by Edward Ball
POETRY
This Time
by Gerald Stern
YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE
Holes
by Louis Sachar




1997
FICTION
Cold Mountain
by Charles Frazier
NONFICTION
American Sphinx
by Joseph J. Ellis
POETRY
Effort at Speech
by William Meredith
YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE
Dancing on the Edge
by Han Nolan




1996
FICTION
Ship Fever and Other Stories
by Andrea Barrett
NONFICTION
An American Requiem
by James Carroll
POETRY
Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey
by Hayden Carruth
YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE
Parrot in the Oven
by Victor Martinez




1995
FICTION
Sabbath's Theater
by Philip Roth
NONFICTION
The Haunted Land
by Tina Rosenberg
POETRY
Passing Through
by Stanley Kunitz




1994
FICTION
A Frolic of His Own
by William Gaddis
NONFICTION
How We Die
by Sherwin B. Nuland
POETRY
A Worshipful Company of Fletchers
by James Tate




1993
FICTION
The Shipping News
by E. Annie Proulx
NONFICTION
United States
by Gore Vidal
POETRY
Garbage
by A. R. Ammons




1992
FICTION
All the Pretty Horses
by Cormac McCarthy
NONFICTION
Becoming a Man
by Paul Monette
POETRY
New and Selected Poems
by Mary Oliver




1991
FICTION
Mating
by Norman Rush
NONFICTION
Freedom
by Orlando Patterson
POETRY
What Work Is
by Philip Levine




1990
FICTION
Middle Passage
by Charles Johnson
NONFICTION
The House of Morgan
by Ron Chernow




1989
FICTION
Spartina
by John Casey
NONFICTION
From Beirut to Jerusalem
by Thomas L. Friedman




1988
FICTION
Paris Trout
by Pete Dexter
NONFICTION
A Bright Shining Lie
by Neil Sheehan




1987
FICTION
Paco's Story
by Larry Heinemann
NONFICTION
The Making of the Atomic Bomb
by Richard Rhodes




1986
FICTION
World's Fair
by E. L. Doctorow
NONFICTION
Arctic Dreams
by Barry Lopez




1985
FICTION
White Noise
by Don DeLillo
FIRST WORK OF FICTION
Easy in the Islands
by Bob Shacochis
NONFICTION
Common Ground
by J. Anthony Lukas




1984
FICTION
Victory over Japan
by Ellen Gilchrist
FIRST WORK OF FICTION
Stones for Ibarra
by Harriet Doerr
NONFICTION
Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy, 1833-1845
by Robert V. Remini




1983
AUTOBIOGRAPHY/BIOGRAPHY (HARDCOVER)
Isak Dinesen
by Judith Thurman
AUTOBIOGRAPHY/BIOGRAPHY (PAPERBACK)
Nathaniel Hawthorne in His Times
by James R. Mellow
CHILDREN'S LITERATURE (HARDCOVER)
Homesick
by Jean Fritz
CHILDREN'S LITERATURE (PAPERBACK)
A Place Apart
by Paula Fox
Marked by Fire
by Joyce Carol Thomas
CHILDREN'S BOOKS (NONFICTION)
Chimney Sweeps
by James Cross Giblin
CHILDREN'S PICTURE BOOKS (HARDCOVER)
Miss Rumphius
by Barbara Cooney
Doctor De Soto
by William Steig
CHILDREN'S PICTURE BOOKS (PAPERBACK)
A House Is a House for Me
by Mary Ann Hoberman, Betty Fraser (illus.)
FICTION (HARDCOVER)
The Color Purple
by Alice Walker
FICTION (PAPERBACK)
Collected Stories of Eudora Welty
by Eudora Welty
FIRST NOVEL
The Women of Brewster Place
by Gloria Naylor
GENERAL NONFICTION (HARDCOVER)
China: Alive in the Bitter Sea
by Fox Butterfield
GENERAL NONFICTION (PAPERBACK)
National Defense
by James Fallows
HISTORY (HARDCOVER)
Voices of Protest
by Alan Brinkley
HISTORY (PAPERBACK)
Utopian Thought in the Western World
by Frank E. Manuel, Fritzie P. Manuel
ORIGINAL PAPERBACK
The Red Magician
by Lisa Goldstein
POETRY
Selected Poems
by Galway Kinnell
Country Music
by Charles Wright
SCIENCE (HARDCOVER)
Subtle Is the Lord..."
by Abraham Pais
SCIENCE (PAPERBACK)
The Mathematical Experience
by Philip J. Davis, Reuben Hersh
TRANSLATION
Les Fleurs du Mal
by Charles Baudelaire, Richard Howard (trans.)




1982
AUTOBIOGRAPHY/BIOGRAPHY (HARDCOVER)
Mornings on Horseback
by David McCullough
AUTOBIOGRAPHY/BIOGRAPHY (PAPERBACK)
Walter Lippmann and the American Century
by Ronald Steel
CHILDREN'S BOOKS, FICTION (HARDCOVER)
Westmark
by Lloyd Alexander
CHILDREN'S BOOKS, FICTION (PAPERBACK)
Words by Heart
by Ouida Sebestyen
CHILDREN'S BOOKS, NONFICTION
A Penguin Year
by Susan Bonners
CHILDREN'S BOOKS, PICTURE BOOKS (HARDCOVER)
Outside over There
by Maurice Sendak
CHILDREN'S BOOKS, PICTURE BOOKS (PAPERBACK)
Noah's Ark
by Peter Spier
FICTION (HARDCOVER)
Rabbit Is Rich
by John Updike
FICTION (PAPERBACK)
So Long, See You Tomorrow
by William Maxwell
FIRST NOVEL
Dale Loves Sophie to Death
by Robb Forman Dew
GENERAL NONFICTION (HARDCOVER)
The Soul of a New Machine
by Tracy Kidder
GENERAL NONFICTION (PAPERBACK)
Naming Names
by Victor S. Navasky
HISTORY (HARDCOVER)
People of the Sacred Mountain
by Peter J. Powell
HISTORY (PAPERBACK)
The Generation of 1914
by Robert Wohl
POETRY
Life Supports
by William Bronk
SCIENCE (HARDCOVER)
Lucy
by Donald C. Johanson, Maitland A. Edey
SCIENCE (PAPERBACK)
Taking the Quantum Leap
by Fred Alan Wolf
TRANSLATION
In the Shade of Spring Leaves
by Higuchi Ichiyo, Robert Lyons Danly (trans.)
The Ten Thousand Leaves
by Ian Hideo Levy




1981
AUTOBIOGRAPHY/BIOGRAPHY (HARDCOVER)
Walt Whitman
by Justin Kaplan
AUTOBIOGRAPHY/BIOGRAPHY (PAPERBACK)
Samuel Beckett
by Deirdre Bair
CHILDREN'S BOOKS, FICTION (HARDCOVER)
The Night Swimmers
by Betsy Byars
CHILDREN'S BOOKS, FICTION (PAPERBACK)
Ramona and Her Mother
by Beverly Cleary
CHILDREN'S BOOKS, NONFICTION (HARDCOVER)
Oh, Boy! Babies
by Alison Cragin Herzig, Jane Mali
FICTION (HARDCOVER)
Plains Song
by Wright Morris
FICTION (PAPERBACK)
The Stories of John Cheever
by John Cheever
FIRST NOVEL
Sister Wolf
by Ann Arensberg
GENERAL FICTION (HARDCOVER)
China Men
by Maxine Hong Kingston
GENERAL NONFICTION (PAPERBACK)
The Last Cowboy
by Jane Kramer
HISTORY (HARDCOVER)
Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality
by John Boswell
HISTORY (PAPERBACK)
Been in the Storm So Long
by Leon F. Litwak
POETRY
The Need to Hold Still
by Lisel Meuller
SCIENCE (HARDCOVER)
The Panda's Thumb
by Stephen Jay Gould
SCIENCE (PAPERBACK)
The Medusa and the Snail
by Lewis Thomas
TRANSLATION
The Letters of Gustave Flaubert
by by Francis Steegmuller (trans.)
Evening Edged in Gold
by Arno Schmidt, John E. Woods (trans.)