National Book Award (thing)

The National Book Awards

In 1950, a consortium of book publishing groups sponsored the first annual National Book Awards Ceremony. Over the years, the categories for which the awards were given have changed. Currently the Awards are given to recognize achievements in four genres:

• Fiction
• Nonfiction
• Poetry
• Young People's Literature.

The Winners, selected by five-member, independent judging panels for each genre, receive a $10,000 cash award and a crystal sculpture.

The National Book Award winners for Nonfiction include:

• 2003: Carlos Eire - Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy
• 2002: Robert A. Caro - The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate
• 2001: Andrew Solomon - The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
• 2000: Nathaniel Philbrick - In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
• 1999: John W. Dower - Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II
• 1998: Edward Ball - Slaves in the Family
• 1997: Joseph J. Ellis - American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson
• 1996: James Carroll - An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War That Came Between Us
• 1995: Tina Rosenberg - The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism
• 1994: Sherwin B. Nuland - How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter
• 1993: Gore Vidal - United States: Essays 1952-1992
• 1992: Paul Monette - Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story
• 1991: Orlando Patterson - Freedom
• 1990: Ron Chernow - The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance
• 1989: Thomas L. Friedman - From Beirut to Jerusalem
• 1988: Neil Sheehan - A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam
• 1987: Richard Rhodes -The Making of the Atomic Bomb
• 1986: Barry Lopez - Arctic Dreams
• 1985: J. Anthony Lukas - Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families
• 1984: Robert V. Remini - Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy, 1833-1845
• 1983:Hardcover- Fox Butterfield - China: Alive in the Bitter Sea
• 1983:Paperback James Fallows - National Defense
• 1982:Hardcover Tracy Kidder - The Soul of a New Machine
• 1982:Paperback Victor S. Navasky - Naming Names
• 1981:Hardcover Maxine Hong Kingston - China Men
• 1981:Paperback Jane Kramer - The Last Cowboy
• 1980:Hardcover Tom Wolfe - The Right Stuff
• 1980:Paperback Peter Matthiessen - The Snow Leopard

Source: www.nationalbook.org Last Updated 04.20.04