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.
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 four award categories since 1996, Fiction, Non-fiction, Poetry, and Young People's Literature. The main list below is organized by the current award categories and by year.
The four categories' winners are selected from hundreds of preliminary nominees. For example, in the 2010 cycle the preliminary phase nominees ranged from 148 in the Poetry category to 435 in the Nonfiction category.[1] In the 2013 cycle, the long−list phase nominees totaled 40 in September, 10 finalists for each of the four categories, with the year's 4 winners announced in November. Lists of five finalists were announced October 16[2] [3]
Repeat winners and split awards are covered at the bottom of the page.
This section covers awards starting in 1950 in the four current categories as defined by their names. Some awards in "previous categories" may have been equivalent except in name.
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.
| 1950 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1951 | ||||
| 1952 | From Here to Eternity | |||
| 1953 | Invisible Man | |||
| 1954 | ||||
| 1955 | ||||
| 1956 | Ten North Frederick | |||
| 1957 | ||||
| 1958 | ||||
| 1959 | ||||
| 1960 | Goodbye, Columbus | [4] | ||
| 1961 | ||||
| 1962 | ||||
| 1963 | Morte d'Urban | |||
| 1964 | ||||
| 1965 | Herzog | |||
| 1966 | ||||
| 1967 | ||||
| 1968 | ||||
| 1969 | Steps | |||
| 1970 | them | |||
| 1971 | Mr. Sammler's Planet | |||
| 1972 | ||||
| 1973 | Chimera | [5] [6] | ||
| Augustus | [7] | |||
| 1974 | Gravity's Rainbow | [8] [9] | ||
| [10] [11] | ||||
| 1975 | Dog Soldiers | [12] | ||
| [13] [14] | ||||
| 1976 | J R | |||
| 1977 | ||||
| 1978 | Blood Tie | |||
| 1979 | Going After Cacciato |
| 1980 | Hardcover | Sophie's Choice | [15] | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paperback | [16] | |||
| 1981 | Hardcover | Plains Song: For Female Voices | [17] | |
| Paperback | ||||
| 1982 | Hardcover | Rabbit is Rich | [18] | |
| Paperback | So Long, See You Tomorrow | |||
| 1983 | Hardcover | [19] | ||
| Paperback | [20] |
| 1984 | Victory Over Japan: A Book of Stories | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1985 | White Noise | [21] | ||
| 1986 | World's Fair | |||
| 1987 | Paco's Story | [22] | ||
| 1988 | Paris Trout | |||
| 1989 | Spartina | |||
| 1990 | Middle Passage | [23] | ||
| 1991 | Mating | |||
| 1992 | All the Pretty Horses | |||
| 1993 | ||||
| 1994 | ||||
| 1995 | Sabbath's Theater | |||
| 1996 | Ship Fever and Other Stories | [24] | ||
| 1997 | Cold Mountain | [25] | ||
| 1998 | Charming Billy | |||
| 1999 | Waiting | |||
| 2000 | In America | |||
| 2001 | [26] | |||
| 2002 | Three Junes | |||
| 2003 | [27] | |||
| 2004 | [28] | |||
| 2005 | Europe Central | |||
| 2006 | ||||
| 2007 | Tree of Smoke | [29] | ||
| 2008 | Shadow Country | |||
| 2009 | Let the Great World Spin | [30] [31] | ||
| 2010 | Lord of Misrule | [32] | ||
| 2011 | Salvage the Bones | [33] [34] | ||
| 2012 | [35] [36] [37] [38] | |||
| 2013 | [39] [40] | |||
| 2014 | Redeployment | [41] [42] | ||
| 2015 | Fortune Smiles | [43] [44] | ||
| 2016 | ||||
| 2017 | Sing, Unburied, Sing | [45] | ||
| 2018 | [46] | |||
| 2019 | Trust Exercise | [47] [48] | ||
| 2020 | Interior Chinatown | [49] | ||
| 2021 | Hell of a Book | [50] [51] [52] | ||
| 2022 | [53] [54] | |||
| 2023 | Justin Torres | Blackouts | [55] |
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.
| 1950 | Ralph L. Rusk | The Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson | Winner | [56] | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1951 | Newton Arvin | Herman Melville | Winner | [57] | |
| 1952 | Rachel Carson | The Sea Around Us | Winner | [58] | |
| 1953 | Bernard De Voto, | The Course of Empire | Winner | [59] | |
| 1954 | Bruce Catton | A Stillness at Appomattox | Winner | [60] | |
| 1955 | Joseph Wood Krutch | The Measure of Man | Winner | [61] | |
| 1956 | Herbert Kubly | An American in Italy | Winner | [62] | |
| 1957 | George F. Kennan | Russia Leaves the War | Winner | [63] | |
| 1958 | Catherine Drinker Bowen | The Lion and the Throne | Winner | [64] | |
| 1959 | J. Christopher Herold | Mistress to an Age: A Life of Madame de Staël | Winner | [65] |
| 1984 | Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy, 1833–1845 | Winner | [66] | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1985 | Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families | Winner | [67] | ||
| 1986 | Winner | [68] | |||
| 1987 | Winner | [69] | |||
| 1988 | Winner | [70] | |||
| 1989 | From Beirut to Jerusalem | Winner | [71] | ||
| 1990 | An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance | Winner | [72] | ||
| 1991 | Freedom, Vol. 1: Freedom in the Making of Western Culture | Winner | [73] | ||
| 1992 | Winner | [74] | |||
| 1993 | United States: Essays 1952–1992 | Winner | [75] | ||
| 1994 | Winner | [76] | |||
| 1995 | Winner | [77] | |||
| 1996 | God, My Father, and the War that Came Between Us | Winner | [78] | ||
| 1997 | Finalist | [79] | |||
| 1998 | Slaves in the Family | Winner | [80] | ||
| 1999 | Embracing Defeat Japan in the Wake of World War II | Winner | [81] | ||
| 2000 | In the Heart of the Sea The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex | Winner | [82] [83] | ||
| 2001 | An Atlas of Depression | Winner | [84] [85] | ||
| 2002 | Winner | [86] | |||
| 2003 | Waiting for Snow in Havana Confessions of a Cuban Boy | Winner | [87] | ||
| 2004 | Arc of Justice A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age | Winner | [88] | ||
| 2005 | Winner | [89] | |||
| 2006 | The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl | Winner | [90] [91] | ||
| 2007 | Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA | Winner | [92] | ||
| 2008 | An American Family | Winner | [93] | ||
| 2009 | The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt | Winner | [94] | ||
| 2010 | Just Kids | Winner | [95] | ||
| 2011 | The Swerve How the World Became Modern | Winner | [96] [97] | ||
| 2012 | Behind the Beautiful Forevers Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity | Winner | [98] [99] | ||
| 2013 | An Inner History of the New America | Winner | [100] [101] [102] | ||
| 2014 | Age of Ambition Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China | Winner | [103] [104] | ||
| 2015 | Between the World and Me | Winner | |||
| 2016 | Stamped from the Beginning The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America | Winner | [105] [106] | ||
| 2017 | The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia | Winner | [107] | ||
| 2018 | Winner | [108] [109] | |||
| 2019 | Winner | [110] | |||
| 2020 | and Tamara Payne | The Life of Malcolm X | Winner | [111] | |
| 2021 | All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake | Winner | [112] | ||
| 2022 | South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon To Understand the Soul of a Nation | Winner | |||
| 2023 | Ned Blackhawk | The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the unmaking of US history | Winner |
| 1950 | Paterson Book Three and Selected Poems | |
|---|---|---|
| 1951 | ||
| 1952 | Collected Poems | |
| 1953 | Collected Poems, 1917–1952 | |
| 1954 | Collected Poems | |
| 1955 | ||
| 1956 | ||
| 1957 | Things of This World | |
| 1958 | Promises: Poems, 1954–1956 | |
| 1959 | Words for the Wind | |
| 1960 | Life Studies | |
| 1961 | ||
| 1962 | Poems | |
| 1963 | Traveling Through the Dark | |
| 1964 | Selected Poems | |
| 1965 | ||
| 1966 | Buckdancer's Choice | |
| 1967 | Nights and Days | |
| 1968 | ||
| 1969 | His Toy, His Dream, His Rest | |
| 1970 | ||
| 1971 | To See, To Take | |
| 1972 | Selected Poems | |
| 1973 | Collected Poems, 1951–1971 | |
| 1974 | ||
| Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971–1972 | ||
| 1975 | Presentation Piece | |
| 1976 | Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror | |
| 1977 | Collected Poems, 1930–1976 | |
| 1978 | ||
| 1979 | Mirabell: Book of Numbers | |
| 1980 | Ashes: Poems New and Old | |
| 1981 | ||
| 1982 | Life Supports: New and Collected Poems | |
| 1983 | Selected Poems | |
| Country Music: Selected Early Poems |
| 1991 | What Work Is | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | New and Selected Poems | |||
| 1993 | Garbage | |||
| 1994 | ||||
| 1995 | Passing Through: The Later Poems | |||
| 1996 | Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey | |||
| 1997 | Effort at Speech: New and Selected Poems | |||
| 1998 | This Time: New and Selected Poems | |||
| 1999 | Ai | Vice: New and Selected Poems | ||
| 2000 | Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988–2000 | |||
| 2001 | Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry | |||
| 2002 | In the Next Galaxy | |||
| 2003 | The Singing | |||
| 2004 | Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965–2003 | |||
| 2005 | Migration: New and Selected Poems | |||
| 2006 | Splay Anthem | |||
| 2007 | Time and Materials: Poems, 1997–2005 | |||
| 2008 | Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems | |||
| 2009 | Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy | |||
| 2010 | Lighthead | |||
| 2011 | Head Off & Split | |||
| 2012 | Bewilderment: New Poems and Translations | |||
| 2013 | Incarnadine | |||
| 2014 | Faithful and Virtuous Night | [113] | ||
| 2015 | Voyage of the Sable Venus | |||
| 2016 | ||||
| 2017 | ||||
| 2018 | Indecency | |||
| 2019 | Sight Lines | |||
| 2020 | DMZ Colony | |||
| 2021 | Floaters | |||
| 2022 | Punks: New & Selected Poems | |||
| 2023 | Craig Santos Perez | from unincorporated territory [åmot] |
See also the "Children's" award categories, immediately below.
| 1996 | Parrott in the Oven: MiVida | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Dancing on the Edge | |||
| 1998 | Holes | |||
| 1999 | When Zachary Beaver Came to Town | |||
| 2000 | Homeless Bird | |||
| 2001 | True Believer | |||
| 2002 | ||||
| 2003 | ||||
| 2004 | Godless | |||
| 2005 | ||||
| 2006 | ||||
| 2007 | ||||
| 2008 | What I Saw and How I Lied | |||
| 2009 | ||||
| 2010 | Mockingbird | |||
| 2011 | Inside Out and Back Again | |||
| 2012 | Goblin Secrets | |||
| 2013 | ||||
| 2014 | Brown Girl Dreaming | |||
| 2015 | Challenger Deep | |||
| 2016 | , Nate Powell, and Andrew Aydin | March: Book Three | ||
| 2017 | Far from the Tree | |||
| 2018 | ||||
| 2019 | 1919 The Year That Changed America | |||
| 2020 | King and the Dragonflies | |||
| 2021 | Last Night at the Telegraph Club | |||
| 2022 | All My Rage | |||
| 2023 | Dan Santat | A First Time for Everything |
The first translation award ran from 1968 to 1983 and was for fiction only, the translated author could be living or dead (e.g. Virgil won in 1973).
| 1967 | Julio Cortázar's Hopscotch | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Casanova's History of My Life | |||
| 1968 | and Edna Hong | Søren Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers | |
| 1969 | Italo Calvino's Cosmicomics | ||
| 1970 | Céline's Castle to Castle | ||
| 1971 | Bertolt Brecht's Saint Joan of the Stockyards | ||
| Yasunari Kawabata's The Sound of the Mountain | |||
| 1972 | Jacques Monod's Chance and Necessity | ||
| 1973 | |||
| 1974 | |||
| Octavio Paz's Alternating Current | |||
| Paul Valéry's Monsieur Teste | |||
| 1975 | Miguel de Unamuno's The Agony of Christianity and Essays on Faith | ||
| 1977 | Master Tung's Western Chamber Romance | ||
| 1978 | Uwe George's In the Deserts of This Earth | ||
| 1979 | and José Rubia Barcia | César Vallejo's The Complete Posthumous Poetry | |
| 1980 | Cesare Pavese's Hard Labor | ||
| and Constance Link | Osip E. Mandelstam's Complete Critical Prose and Letters | ||
| 1981 | |||
| Arno Schmidt's Evening Edged in Gold | |||
| 1982 | Higuchi Ichiyō's In the Shade of Spring Leaves | ||
| The Ten Thousand Leaves: A Translation of The Man'Yoshu, Japan's Premier Anthology of Classical Poetry | |||
| 1983 | Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal |
| 2018 | Tawada Yoko's The Emissary | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | László Krasznahorkai's Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming | |||
| 2020 | Miri Yu's Tokyo Ueno Station | |||
| 2021 | Elisa Shua Dusapin's Winter in Sokcho | |||
| 2022 | Samanta Schweblin's Seven Empty Houses | |||
| 2023 | Bruna Dantas Lobarto | Stênio Gardel's The Words That Remain |
| 1969 | Literature | Journey from Peppermint Street | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 | Literature | ||
| 1971 | Literature | ||
| 1972 | Literature | ||
| 1973 | Literature | ||
| 1974 | Literature | ||
| 1975 | Literature | M. C. Higgins the Great | |
| 1976 | Literature | Bert Breen's Barn | |
| 1977 | Literature | ||
| 1978 | Literature | and Herbert R. Kohl | |
| 1979 | Literature | ||
| 1980 | Fiction (hardcover) | ||
| Fiction (paperback) | |||
| 1981 | Fiction (hardcover) | ||
| Fiction (paperback) | Ramona and Her Mother | ||
| Nonfiction (hardcover) | and Jane Lawrence Mali | Oh, Boy! Babies | |
| 1982 | Fiction (hardcover) | Westmark | |
| Fiction (paperback) | Words by Heart | ||
| Nonfiction | |||
| Picture Books (hardcover) | Outside Over There | ||
| Picture Books (paperback) | Noah's Ark | ||
| 1983 | Fiction (hardcover) | Homesick: My Own Story | |
| Fiction (paperback) | |||
| Marked by Fire | |||
| Nonfiction | Chimney Sweeps | ||
| Picture Books (hardcover) | Miss Rumphius | ||
| Doctor De Soto | |||
| Picture Books (paperback) | with Betty Fraser (illus.) |
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.
| 1964 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1965 | |||
| 1966 | Paris Journal, 1944–1965 | ||
| 1967 | Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain: A Biography | ||
| 1968 | Selected Essays | ||
| 1969 | |||
| 1970 | |||
| 1971 | Cocteau: A Biography | ||
| 1972 | |||
| 1973 | Diderot | ||
| 1974 | Deeper into Movies | ||
| 1975 | Marcel Proust | ||
| [115] | |||
| 1976 |
| 1964 | History and Biography | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1965 | History and Biography | ||
| 1966 | History and Biography | ||
| 1967 | History and Biography | ||
| 1968 | History and Biography | Memoirs: 1925–1950 | |
| 1969 | History and Biography | White over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550–1812 | |
| 1970 | History and Biography | Huey Long | |
| 1971 | History and Biography | ||
| 1972 | Biography | Eleanor and Franklin The Story of Their Relationship, Based on Eleanor Roosevelt's Private Papers | |
| History | |||
| 1973 | Biography | George Washington, Vol. IV: Anguish and Farewell, 1793–1799 | |
| History | A True Story of Georgia and the Civil War | ||
| Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe under Nazi Occupation | |||
| 1974 | Biography | Thomas Babington Macaulay: The Shaping of the Historian [116] | |
| Malcolm Lowry: A Biography | |||
| History | Thomas Babington Macaulay: The Shaping of the Historian | ||
| 1975 | Biography | ||
| History | |||
| 1976 | History and Biography | ||
| 1977 | Biography and Autobiography | Norman Thomas: The Last Idealist | |
| History | World of Our Fathers: The Journey of the East European Jews to America and the Life They Found and Made | ||
| 1978 | Biography and Autobiography | Samuel Johnson | |
| History | |||
| 1979 | Biography and Autobiography | Robert Kennedy and His Times | |
| History | Intellectual Life in the Colonial South, 1585–1763 | ||
| 1980 | Autobiography (hardcover) | Lauren Bacall by Myself | |
| Autobiography (paperback) | And I Worked at the Writer's Trade: Chapters of Literary History 1918–1978 | ||
| Biography (hardcover) | |||
| Biography (paperback) | Max Perkins: Editor of Genius | ||
| History (hardcover) | |||
| History (paperback) | |||
| 1981 | (Auto)biography (hardcover) | Walt Whitman: A Life | |
| (Auto)biography (paperback) | Samuel Beckett: A Biography | ||
| History (hardcover) | Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality | ||
| History (paperback) | |||
| 1982 | (Auto)biography (hardcover) | Mornings on Horseback | |
| (Auto)biography (paperback) | Walter Lippmann and the American Century | ||
| History (hardcover) | People of the Sacred Mountain: A History of the Northern Cheyenne Chiefs and Warrior Societies, 1830–1879 | ||
| History (paperback) | |||
| 1983 | (Auto)biography (hardcover) | Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller | |
| (Auto)biography (paperback) | Nathaniel Hawthorne in His Times | ||
| History (hardcover) | |||
| History (paperback) | and Fritzie P. Manuel | Utopia in the Western World |
| 1964 | Science, Philosophy and Religion | and Boris Pushkarev | Man-made America: Chaos or Control? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1965 | Science, Philosophy and Religion | 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) | |
| 1967 | Science, Philosophy and Religion | A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty—San Juan and New York | |
| 1968 | Science, Philosophy and Religion | Death at an Early Age | |
| 1969 | The Sciences | Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima | |
| 1970 | Philosophy and Religion | ||
| 1971 | The Sciences | Science in the British Colonies of America | |
| 1972 | Philosophy and Religion | Righteous Empire: The Protestant Experience in America | |
| The Sciences | |||
| 1973 | Philosophy and Religion | ||
| The Sciences | A Study of Predator-Prey Relations | ||
| 1974 | Philosophy and Religion | Edmund Husserl: Philosopher of Infinite Tasks | |
| The Sciences | Life: The Unfinished Experiment | ||
| 1975 | Philosophy and Religion | Anarchy, State, and Utopia | |
| The Sciences | Interpretation of Schizophrenia | ||
| 1980 | Religion/Inspiration (hardcover) | ||
| Religion/Inspiration (paperback) | |||
| Science (hardcover) | |||
| Science (paperback) | |||
| 1981 | Science (hardcover) | More Reflections on Natural History | |
| Science (paperback) | |||
| 1982 | Science (hardcover) | and Maitland A. Edey | Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind |
| Science (paperback) | Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics for Nonscientists | ||
| 1983 | Science (hardcover) | ||
| Science (paperback) | and Reuben Hersh | ||
| Contemporary Affairs | 1972 | (ed.) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1973 | |||
| 1974 | The People of the State of New York versus Lumumba Shakur, et al. | ||
| 1975 | All God's Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw | ||
| 1976 | Passage to Ararat | ||
| Contemporary Thought | 1977 | ||
| 1978 | Winners and Losers | ||
| 1979 | [117] | ||
| Current Interest (hardcover) | 1980 | Julia Child and More Company | |
| Current Interest (paperback) |
| 1980 | Hardcover | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Paperback | |||
| 1981 | Hardcover | China Men | |
| Paperback | |||
| 1982 | Hardcover | ||
| Paperback | Naming Names | ||
| 1983 | Hardcover | China: Alive in the Bitter Sea | |
| Paperback | National Defense |
| 1980 | First Novel | Birdy | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mystery (hardcover) | ||||
| Mystery (paperback) | Stained Glass | |||
| Science Fiction (hardcover) | Jem | |||
| Science Fiction (paperback) | ||||
| Western | Bendigo Shafter | |||
| 1981 | First Novel | Sister Wolf | ||
| 1982 | First Novel | Dale Loves Sophie to Death | ||
| 1983 | First Novel | |||
| 1984 | First Work of Fiction | Stones for Ibarra | ||
| 1985 | First Work of Fiction | Easy in the Islands |
| 1980 | General Reference Books (hardcover) | (ed.) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| General Reference Books (paperback) | and Earle Marsh | |||
| 1983 | Original Paperback |
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.[118] [119] Subsequently, the awards were announced mid-February to March 1[120] [121] [122] [123] [124] [125] and presented at the convention. For 1937 books there were ballots from 319 stores, about three times as many as for 1935. There had been 600 ABA members in 1936.
The "Most Distinguished" Nonfiction, Biography, and Novel (for 1935 and 1936) 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."
The Bookseller Discovery officially recognized "outstanding merit which failed to receive adequate sales and recognition" 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".
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.
| 1935 | Biography | Personal History | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Most Original Book | |||||
| Nonfiction | North to the Orient | ||||
| Novel | Time Out of Mind | ||||
| 1936 | Biography | Adventures in Forty-Five Countries | [126] [127] | ||
| Bookseller Discovery | I Met a Gypsy | ||||
| Most Original Book | [128] | ||||
| Nonfiction | |||||
| 1937 | Bookseller Discovery | On Borrowed Time | |||
| Fiction | |||||
| Most Original Book | Four Hundred Million Customers: The Experiences—Some Happy, Some Sad, of an American Living in China, and What They Taught Him | ||||
| Nonfiction | Madame Curie | ||||
| 1938 | Bookseller Discovery | The World Was My Garden: Travels of a Plant Explorer | |||
| Fiction | Rebecca | ||||
| Most Original Book | With Malice Toward Some | [129] | |||
| Nonfiction | Listen! The Wind | ||||
| 1939 | Bookseller Discovery | Ararat | |||
| Fiction | |||||
| Most Original Book | Johnny Got His Gun | ||||
| Nonfiction | Wind, Sand and Stars | ||||
| 1940 | Bookseller Discovery | Who Walk Alone[130] (1942 subtitle, Life of a Leper)[131] | |||
| Fiction | How Green Was My Valley | ||||
| Nonfiction | As I Remember Him: The Biography of R.S. | ||||
| 1941 | Bookseller Discovery | Hold Autumn in Your Hand |
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[132] [133] | 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)[134] | |
| 1981[135] | Book Design, pictorial | In China, photographed by Eve Arnold, designer R. D. Scudellari (The Brooklyn Museum)http://designarchives.aiga.org/#/entries/%2Bid%3A7002/_/detail/relevance/asc/0/7/7002/in-china/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.
1974 Biography; 1974 History
1979 Contemporary Thought; 1980 General Nonfiction, Paperback
1975 Arts and Letters; 1975 Science
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.
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.
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.