From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
These authors and books have won the annual National Book Awards, awarded to American authors by the National Book Foundation based in the United States.
History of categories[edit]The National Book Awards were first awarded to four 1935 publications in May 1936. Contrary to that historical fact, the National Book Foundation currently recognizes only a history of purely literary awards that begins in 1950. The pre-war awards and the 1980 to 1983 graphics awards are covered below following the main list of current award categories.
There have been five award categories since 2018: Fiction, Non-fiction, Poetry, Young People's Literature, and Translated Literature. The main list below is organized by the current award categories and by year.
The categories' winners are selected from hundreds of preliminary nominees – "from 150 titles (Translated Literature) to upwards of 600 titles (Nonfiction)."[1] Since 2013, a long list of ten entries for each of the categories has been selected and announced in September, followed by five finalists for each category in October, with the year's winners announced in November.[1]
Repeat winners and split awards are covered at the bottom of the page.
Current award categories[edit]This section covers awards starting in 1950 in the five current categories as defined by their names. Some awards in "previous categories" may have been equivalent except in name.[2]
General fiction for adult readers is a National Book Award category that has been continuous since 1950, with multiple awards for a few years beginning 1980. From 1935 to 1941, there were six annual awards for novels or general fiction and the "Bookseller Discovery", the "Most Original Book"; both awards were sometimes given to a novel.
Dozens of new categories were introduced in 1980, including "General fiction", hardcover and paperback, which are both listed here.[i] The comprehensive "Fiction" genre and hard-or-soft format were both restored three years later.
The comprehensive "Fiction" category returned in 1984.
General nonfiction for adult readers is a National Book Award category continuous only from 1984, when the general award was restored after two decades of awards in several nonfiction categories. From 1935 to 1941 there were six annual awards for general nonfiction, two for biography, and the Bookseller Discovery or Most Original Book was sometimes nonfiction.
Multiple nonfiction categories were introduced in 1964, initially Arts and Letters; History and (Auto)Biography; and Science, Philosophy and Religion. See also Contemporary and General Nonfiction. The comprehensive "Nonfiction" genre was restored twenty years later.
National Book Award for Nonfiction winners, 1984 to present Year Author Title Result Ref. 1984 Robert V. Remini Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy, 1833–1845 Winner [68] 1985 J. Anthony Lukas Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families Winner [69] 1986 Barry Lopez Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape Winner [70][33] 1987 Richard Rhodes The Making of the Atomic Bomb Winner [71] 1988 Neil Sheehan A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam Winner [72] 1989 Thomas L. Friedman From Beirut to Jerusalem Winner [73] 1990 Ron Chernow The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance Winner [74] 1991 Orlando Patterson Freedom, Vol. 1: Freedom in the Making of Western Culture Winner [75] 1992 Paul Monette Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story Winner [76] 1993 Gore Vidal United States: Essays 1952–1992 Winner [77] 1994 Sherwin B. Nuland How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter Winner [78] 1995 Tina Rosenberg The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism Winner [79] 1996 James Carroll An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War that Came Between Us Winner [80] 1997 Joseph J. Ellis American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson Finalist [81] 1998 Edward Ball Slaves in the Family Winner [82] 1999 John W. Dower Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II Winner [83] 2000 Nathaniel Philbrick In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex Winner [84][85] 2001 Andrew Solomon The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression Winner [86][87] 2002 Robert A. Caro Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson Winner [88] 2003 Carlos Eire Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy Winner [89] 2004 Kevin Boyle Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age Winner [90] 2005 Joan Didion The Year of Magical Thinking Winner [91] 2006 Timothy Egan The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl Winner [92][93] 2007 Tim Weiner Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA Winner [94] 2008 Annette Gordon-Reed The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family Winner [95] 2009 T. J. Stiles The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt Winner [96] 2010 Patti Smith Just Kids Winner [97] 2011 Stephen Greenblatt The Swerve: How the World Became Modern Winner [98][99] 2012 Katherine Boo Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity Winner [100][39][37][101] 2013 George Packer The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America Winner [102][103][104] 2014 Evan Osnos Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China Winner [105][106] 2015 Ta-Nehisi Coates Between the World and Me Winner [44] 2016 Ibram X. Kendi Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America Winner [107][108] 2017 Masha Gessen The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia Winner [109][46] 2018 Jeffrey C. Stewart The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke Winner [110][111] 2019 Sarah M. Broom The Yellow House Winner [112] 2020 Les Payne and Tamara Payne The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X Winner [113] 2021 Tiya Miles All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake Winner [114][52] 2022 Imani Perry South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon To Understand the Soul of a Nation Winner [54][55] 2023 Ned Blackhawk The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the unmaking of US history Winner [56] 2024 Jason De León Soldiers and Kings Winner [57]Major reorganization in 1984 eliminated the 30-year-old Poetry award along with dozens of younger ones. Poetry alone was restored seven years later.
Young People's Literature[edit]An award for translated works was first established in 1967.[118][119] The standard $1000 cash prize was initially provided by the National Translation Center, which had been founded at the University of Texas at Austin in 1965 with a grant from the Ford Foundation.[120]
The first translation award ran from 1967 to 1983 and was for fiction only; the translated author could be living or dead.
The National Book Award for Translated Literature was inaugurated in 2018 for fiction or non-fiction, where both author and translator were alive at the beginning of the awards cycle.[122]
Nonfiction subcategories 1964 to 1983[edit]This section covers awards from 1964 to 1983 in categories that differ from the "current categories" in name. Some of them were substantially equivalent to current categories.[2]
History and (Auto)biography[edit] National Book Award for Nonfiction: History and (Auto)biography winners, 1964–1983 Year Category Author Title 1964 History and Biography William H. McNeill The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community 1965 History and Biography Louis Fischer The Life of Lenin 1966 History and Biography Arthur Schlesinger A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House 1967 History and Biography Peter Gay The Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Paganism 1968 History and Biography George F. Kennan Memoirs: 1925–1950 1969 History and Biography Winthrop D. Jordan White over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550–1812 1970 History and Biography T. Harry Williams Huey Long 1971 History and Biography James MacGregor Burns Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom 1972 Biography Joseph P. Lash Eleanor and Franklin: The Story of Their Relationship, Based on Eleanor Roosevelt's Private Papers History Allan Nevins The Organized War 1973 Biography James Thomas Flexner George Washington, Vol. IV: Anguish and Farewell, 1793–1799 History[a] Robert Manson Myers The Children of Pride: A True Story of Georgia and the Civil War Isaiah Trunk Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe under Nazi Occupation 1974 Biography[b] John Clive Thomas Babington Macaulay: The Shaping of the Historian [iii] Douglas Day Malcolm Lowry: A Biography History John Clive Thomas Babington Macaulay: The Shaping of the Historian[iii] 1975 Biography Richard B. Sewall The Life of Emily Dickinson History Bernard Bailyn The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson 1976 History and Biography David Brion Davis The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823 1977 Biography and Autobiography W. A. Swanberg Norman Thomas: The Last Idealist History Irving Howe World of Our Fathers: The Journey of the East European Jews to America and the Life They Found and Made 1978 Biography and Autobiography W. Jackson Bate Samuel Johnson History David McCullough The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870–1914 1979 Biography and Autobiography Arthur Schlesinger Robert Kennedy and His Times History Richard Beale Davis Intellectual Life in the Colonial South, 1585–1763 1980 Autobiography (hardcover) Lauren Bacall Lauren Bacall by Myself Autobiography (paperback) Malcolm Cowley And I Worked at the Writer's Trade: Chapters of Literary History 1918–1978 Biography (hardcover) Edmund Morris The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt Biography (paperback) A. Scott Berg Max Perkins: Editor of Genius History (hardcover) Henry A. Kissinger The White House Years History (paperback) Barbara W. Tuchman A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century 1981 (Auto)biography (hardcover) Justin Kaplan Walt Whitman: A Life (Auto)biography (paperback) Deirdre Bair Samuel Beckett: A Biography History (hardcover) John Boswell Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality History (paperback) Leon F. Litwack Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery 1982 (Auto)biography (hardcover) David McCullough Mornings on Horseback (Auto)biography (paperback) Ronald Steel Walter Lippmann and the American Century History (hardcover) Peter J. Powell People of the Sacred Mountain: A History of the Northern Cheyenne Chiefs and Warrior Societies, 1830–1879 History (paperback) Robert Wohl The Generation of 1914 1983 (Auto)biography (hardcover) Judith Thurman Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller (Auto)biography (paperback) James R. Mellow Nathaniel Hawthorne in His Times History (hardcover) Alan Brinkley Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin and the Great Depression History (paperback) Frank E. Manuel and Fritzie P. Manuel Utopia in the Western World Science, Philosophy and Religion[edit] National Book Award for Nonfiction: Science, Philosophy, and Religion winners, 1964–1983 Year Category Author Title 1964 Science, Philosophy and Religion Christopher Tunnard and Boris Pushkarev Man-made America: Chaos or Control? 1965 Science, Philosophy and Religion Norbert Wiener God and Golem, Inc: A Comment on Certain Points where Cybernetics Impinges on Religion 1966 Science, Philosophy and Religion No Award (four finalists, none selected)[121] 1967 Science, Philosophy and Religion Oscar Lewis La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty—San Juan and New York 1968 Science, Philosophy and Religion Jonathan Kozol Death at an Early Age 1969 The Sciences Robert Jay Lifton Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima 1970 Philosophy and Religion Erik H. Erikson Gandhi's Truth: On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence 1971 The Sciences Raymond Phineas Stearns Science in the British Colonies of America 1972 Philosophy and Religion Martin E. Marty Righteous Empire: The Protestant Experience in America The Sciences George L. Small The Blue Whale 1973 Philosophy and Religion S. E. Ahlstrom A Religious History of the American People The Sciences George B. Schaller The Serengeti Lion: A Study of Predator-Prey Relations 1974 Philosophy and Religion Maurice Natanson Edmund Husserl: Philosopher of Infinite Tasks The Sciences S. E. Luria Life: The Unfinished Experiment 1975 Philosophy and Religion Robert Nozick Anarchy, State, and Utopia The Sciences[c] Silvano Arieti Interpretation of Schizophrenia Lewis Thomas The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher[ii] 1980 Religion/Inspiration (hardcover) Elaine Pagels The Gnostic Gospels Religion/Inspiration (paperback) Sheldon Vanauken A Severe Mercy Science (hardcover) Douglas Hofstadter Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid Science (paperback) Gary Zukav The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics 1981 Science (hardcover) Stephen Jay Gould The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections on Natural History Science (paperback) Lewis Thomas The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher 1982 Science (hardcover) Donald C. Johanson and Maitland A. Edey Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind Science (paperback) Fred Alan Wolf Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics for Nonscientists 1983 Science (hardcover) Abraham Pais " Subtle is the Lord...": The Science and Life of Albert Einstein Science (paperback) Philip J. Davis and Reuben Hersh The Mathematical Experience General Nonfiction[edit] Other Fiction 1980 to 1985[edit]The first National Book Awards were presented in May 1936 at the annual convention of the American Booksellers Association to four 1935 books selected by its members.[123][124] Subsequently, the awards were announced mid-February to March 1[125][126][127][128][129][130] and presented at the convention. For 1937 books there were ballots from 319 stores, about three times as many as for 1935.[126] There had been 600 ABA members in 1936.[125]
The "Most Distinguished" Nonfiction, Biography, and Novel (for 1935 and 1936)[123][124][125] were reduced to two and termed "Favorite" Nonfiction and Fiction beginning 1937. Master of ceremonies Clifton Fadiman declined to consider the Pulitzer Prizes (not yet announced in February 1938) as potential ratifications. "Unlike the Pulitzer Prize committee, the booksellers merely vote for their favorite books. They do not say it is the best book or the one that will elevate the standard of manhood or womanhood. Twenty years from now we can decide which are the masterpieces. This year we can only decide which books we enjoyed reading the most."[126]
The Bookseller Discovery officially recognized "outstanding merit which failed to receive adequate sales and recognition"[127] The award stood alone for 1941 and the New York Times frankly called it "a sort of consolation prize that the booksellers hope will draw attention to his work".[130]
Authors and publishers outside the United States were eligible and there were several winners by non-U.S. authors (at least Lofts, Curie, de Saint-Exupéry, Du Maurier, and Llewellyn). The Bookseller Discovery and the general awards for fiction and non-fiction were conferred six times in seven years, the Most Original Book five times, and the biography award in the first two years only.
Dates are years of publication.
The "Academy Awards model" (Oscars) was introduced in 1980 under the name TABA, The American Book Awards. The program expanded from seven literary awards to 28 literary and 6 graphics awards. After 1983, with 19 literary and 8 graphics awards, the Awards practically went out of business, to be restored in 1984 with a program of three literary awards.
Since 1988 the Awards have been under the care of the National Book Foundation which does not recognize the graphics awards.
1980 Art/Illustrated collection (hardcover) Drawings and Digressions by Larry Rivers with Carol Brightman; Herman Strobuck, designer (Clarkson N. Potter) Art/Illustrated original art (hard) The Birthday of the Infanta by Oscar Wilde (1888 original), illustrated by Leonard Lubin (Viking Press) Art/Illustrated (paperback) Anatomy Illustrated by Emily Blair Chewning; designed by Dana Levy (Fireside/ Simon & Schuster) Book Design (hc & ppb) The Architect's Eye by Debora Nevins and Robert A. M. Stern (Pantheon Books) Cover Design (paper) Famous Potatoes by Joe Cottonwood (orig. 1978); David Myers, designer (Delta/ Seymour Lawrence) Jacket Design (hard) Birdy by William Wharton; Fred Marcellino, designer (Alfred A. Knopf)[v] 1981 Book Design, pictorial In China, photographed by Eve Arnold, designer R. D. Scudellari (The Brooklyn Museum)[1] Book Design, typographical Saul Bellow, Drumlin Woodchuck by Mark Harris, designed by Richard Hendel (University of Georgia Press) Book Illustration, collected or adapted The Lost Museum: glimpses of vanished originals by Robert M. Adams, designed by Michael Shroyer (Viking Press) Cover Design, paperback Fiorucci: The Book, designed by Quist-Couratin(?) (Milan: Harlin Quist Books, distributed by Dial/ Delacorte) Jacket Design, hardcover In China, photographed by Eve Arnold, designer R. D. Scudellari (The Brooklyn Museum) 1982 1983 Pictorial Design Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, designer/illustrator Barry Moser, art director Steve Renick (University of California Press) Typographical Design A Constructed Roman Alphabet, designer/illustrator David Lance Goines, art director William F. Luckey (David R. Godine) Illustration Collected Art John Singer Sargent by Carter Ratcliff, designer Howard Morris, editor Nancy Grubb, production manager Dana Cole (Abbeville Press) Illustration Original Art Porcupine Stew by Beverly Major, illustrator Erick Ingraham, designer/art director Cynthia Basil (William Morrow Junior Books) Illustration Photographs Alfred Stieglitz: Photographs and Writings by Sarah Greenough and Juan Hamilton, designer Eleanor Morris Caponigro (National Gallery of Art/Callaway Editions) Cover Design Bogmail by Patrick McGinley, illustrator Doris Ettlinger, designer/art director Neil Stuart (Penguin Books) Jacket Design Souls on Fire by Elie Wiesel, designer Fred Marcellino, art director Frank Metz (Summit Books/ Simon & Schuster)Herbert Mitgang's report on the inaugural TABA begins thus: "Thirty-four hardcover and paperback books, many of which nobody had heard of before, were named winners during a generally ragged presentation of the first American Book Awards in a ceremony at the Seventh Regiment Armory last night. The event was designed to resemble Hollywood's Oscars, but instead there was little glamour. All the winners were barred from accepting their awards, and most did not attend."
At least three books have won two National Book Awards.
Dates are award years.
At least three authors have won three awards: Saul Bellow with three Fiction awards; Peter Matthiessen with two awards for The Snow Leopard (above) and the 2008 Fiction award for Shadow Country; Lewis Thomas with two awards for The Lives of a Cell (above) and the 1981 Science paperback award for The Medusa and the Snail.
These three authors and numerous others have written two award-winning books.
Dates are award years.
"Children's" and "Young People's" categories[edit]The Translation award was split six times during its 1967 to 1983 history, once split three ways. Twelve other awards were split, all during that period.[2]
Four of the ten awards were split in 1974, including the three-way split in Translation. That year the Awards practically went out of business. In 1975 there was no sponsor. A temporary administrator, the Committee on Awards Policy, "begged" judges not to split awards, yet three of ten awards were split. William Cole explained this in a New York Times column pessimistically entitled "The Last of the National Book Awards" but the Awards were "saved" by the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1976.
Split awards returned with a 1980 reorganization on Academy Awards lines (under the ambiguous name "American Book Awards" for a few years). From 1980 to 1983 there were not only split awards but more than twenty award categories annually; there were graphics awards (or "non-literary awards") and dual awards for hardcover and paperback books, both unique to the period.
In 1983 the awards again went out of business, and they were not saved for 1983 publications (January to October). The 1984 reorganization prohibited split awards as it trimmed the award categories from 27 to three.
{{cite news}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link){{cite news}}
: CS1 maint: year (link)RetroSearch is an open source project built by @garambo | Open a GitHub Issue
Search and Browse the WWW like it's 1997 | Search results from DuckDuckGo
HTML:
3.2
| Encoding:
UTF-8
| Version:
0.7.4