National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote the finest books and reviews published in English.
The main awards fall into six categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Memoir/Autobiography, Biography, and Criticism. Awards are not given to titles that have been previously published in English, such as re-issues and paperback editions. They also do not "consider cookbooks, self help books (including inspirational literature), reference books, picture books or children's books." [1] Titles are, however, eligible to be awarded if they are "translations, short story and essay collections, self published books, and any titles that fall under the general categories above."
2006 finalists and winners
The 2006 award winners (bold) were announced on March 8, 2007.
Fiction
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun (Knopf)
- Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss (Grove/Atlantic)
- Dave Eggers, What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng (McSweeney's)
- Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land (Knopf)
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road (Knopf)
Nonfiction
- Patrick Cockburn, The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq (Verso)
- Anne Fessler, The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe V. Wade (Penguin Press)
- Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (Penguin Press)
- Simon Schama, Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution (Ecco)
- Sandy Tolan, The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew and the Heart of the Middle East (Bloomsbury)
Memoir/Autobiography
- Donald Antrim, The Afterlife (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
- Alison Bechdel, Fun Home (Houghton Mifflin)
- Alexander Masters, Stuart: A Life Backwards (Delacorte)
- Daniel Mendelsohn, The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million (HarperCollins)
- Terri Jentz, Strange Piece of Paradise (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Biography
- Debby Applegate, The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher (Doubleday)
- Taylor Branch, At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-1968 (Simon& Schuster)
- Frederick Brown, Flaubert: A Biography (Little, Brown)
- Julie Phillips, James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon (St.Martin's Press)
- Jason Roberts, A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History's Greatest Traveler (HarperCollins)
Poetry
- Daisy Fried, My Brother is Getting Arrested Again (University of Pittsburgh Press)
- Troy Jollimore, Tom Thomson in Purgatory (Margie/Intuit House)
- Miltos Sachtouris, Poems (1945-1971) (Archipelego Books)
- Frederick Seidel, Ooga-Booga (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
- W.D. Snodgrass, Not for Specialists: New and Selected Poems (BOA Editions)
Criticism
- Bruce Bawer, While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West From Within (Doubleday)
- Frederick Crews, Follies of the Wise: Dissenting Essays (Shoemaker & Hoard)
- Daniel Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (Viking)
- Lia Purpura, On Looking: Essays (Sarabande Books)
- Lawrence Weschler, Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences (McSweeney's)
The Ivan Sandrof Award for Lifetime Achievement
The Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing
Fiction
General nonfiction
Memoir/Autobiography
| 2007 | Edwidge Danticat | Brother, I'm Dying |
| 2006 | Daniel Mendelsohn | The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million |
| 2005 | Francine du Plessix Gray | Them: A Memoir of Parents |
Biography
| 2006 | Julie Phillips | James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon |
| 2005 | Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin | American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer |
Biography/Autobiography (discontinued)
| 2004 | Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan | De Kooning: An American Master |
| 2003 | William Taubman | Khrushchev: The Man and His Era |
| 2002 | Janet Browne | Charles Darwin: The Power of Place, Vol. II |
| 2001 | Adam Sisman | Boswell's Presumptuous Task: The Making of the Life of Dr.Johnson |
| 2000 | Herbert P. Bix | Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan |
| 1999 | Henry Wiencek | The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White |
| 1998 | Sylvia Nasar | A Beautiful Mind (book)A Beautiful Mind |
| 1997 | James Tobin | Ernie Pyle's War: America's Eyewitness to World War II |
| 1996 | Frank McCourt | Angela's Ashes |
| 1995 | Robert Polito | Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson |
| 1994 | Mikal Gilmore | Shot in the Heart |
| 1993 | Edmund White | Genet |
| 1992 | Carol Brightman | Writing Dangerously: Mary McCarthy and Her World |
| 1991 | Philip Roth | Patrimony: A True Story |
| 1990 | Robert A. Caro | Means of Ascent: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. II |
| 1989 | Geoffrey C. Ward | A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt |
| 1988 | Richard Ellman | Oscar Wilde |
| 1987 | Donald R. Howard | Chaucer: His Life, His Works, His World |
| 1986 | Theodore Rosengarten | Tombee: Portrait of a Cotton Planter |
| 1985 | Leon Edel | Henry James: A Life |
| 1984 | Joseph Frank | Dostoevsky: The Years of Ordeal, 1850-1859 |
| 1983 | Joyce Johnson | Minor Characters |
Poetry
| 2006 | Troy Jollimore | Tom Thomson in Purgatory |
| 2005 | Jack Gilbert | Refusing Heaven |
| 2004 | Adrienne Rich | The School Among the Ruins |
| 2003 | Susan Stewart | Columbarium |
| 2002 | B.H. Fairchild | Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest |
| 2001 | Albert Goldbarth | Saving Lives |
| 2000 | Judy Jordan | Carolina Ghost Woods |
| 1999 | Ruth Stone | Ordinary Words |
| 1998 | Marie Ponsot | The Bird Catcher |
| 1997 | Charles Wright | Black Zodiac |
| 1996 | Robert Hass | Sun Under Wood |
| 1995 | William Matthews | Time and Money |
| 1994 | Mark Rudman | Rider |
| 1993 | Mark Doty | My Alexandria |
| 1992 | Hayden Carruth | Collected Shorter Poems 1946-1991 |
| 1991 | Albert Goldbarth | Heaven and Earth: A Cosmology |
| 1990 | Amy Gerstler | Bitter Angel |
| 1989 | Rodney Jones | Transparent Gestures |
| 1988 | Donald Hall | That One Day |
| 1987 | C.K. Williams | Flesh and Blood |
| 1986 | Edward Hirsch | Wild Gratitude |
| 1985 | Louise Glück | The Triumph of Achilles |
| 1984 | Sharon Olds | The Dead and the Living |
| 1983 | James Merrill | The Changing Light at Sandover |
| 1982 | Katha Pollitt | Antarctic Traveler |
| 1981 | A.R. Ammons | A Coast of Trees |
| 1980 | Frederick Seidel | Sunrise |
| 1979 | Philip Levine | Ashes: Poems New and Old and 7 Years From Somewhere |
| 1978 | L. E. Sissman | Hello, Darkness: The Collected Poems of L. E. Sissman |
| 1977 | Robert Lowell | Day by Day |
| 1976 | Elizabeth Bishop | Geography III |
| 1975 | John Ashberry | Self-Portrait in A Convex Mirror |
Criticism
| 2006 | Lawrence Weschler | Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences |
| 2005 | William Logan | The Undiscovered Country: Poetry in the Age of Tin |
| 2004 | Patrick Neate | Where You're At: Notes From the Frontline of a Hip-Hop Planet |
| 2003 | Rebecca Solnit | River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West |
| 2002 | William H. Gass | Tests of Time |
| 2001 | Martin Amis | The War Against Cliché: Essays and Reviews, 1971-2000 |
| 2000 | Cynthia Ozick | Quarrel & Quandary |
| 1999 | Jorge Luis Borges | Selected Non-Fictions |
| 1998 | Gary Giddins | Visions of Jazz: The First Century |
| 1997 | Mario Vargas Llosa | Making Waves |
| 1996 | William H. Gass | Finding a Form |
| 1995 | Robert Darnton | The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France |
| 1994 | Gerald Early | The Culture of Bruising: Essays on Prizefighting, Literature, and Modern American Culture |
| 1993 | John Dizikes | Opera in America: A Cultural History |
| 1992 | Garry Wills | Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America |
| 1991 | Lawrence L. Langer | Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory |
| 1990 | Arthur C. Danto | Encounters and Reflections: Art in the Historical Present |
| 1989 | John Clive | Not by Fact Alone: Essays on the Writing and Reading of History |
| 1988 | Clifford Geertz | Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author |
| 1987 | Edwin Denby | Dance Writings |
| 1986 | Joseph Brodsky | Less Than One: Selected Essays |
| 1985 | William H. Gass | Habitations of the Word: Essays |
| 1984 | Robert Hass | Twentieth Century Pleasures: Prose on Poetry |
| 1983 | John Updike | Hugging the Shore: Essays and Criticism |
| 1982 | Gore Vidal | The Second American Revolution and Other Essays |
| 1981 | Virgil Thomson | A Virgil Thomson Reader |
| 1980 | Helen Vendler | Part of Nature, Part of Us: Modern American Poets |
| 1979 | Elaine Pagels | The Gnostic Gospels |
| 1978 | Meyer Schapiro | Modern Art: 19th and 20th Centuries (Selected Papers, Volume 2) |
| 1977 | Susan Sontag | On Photography |
| 1976 | Bruno Bettelheim | The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance and Importance of Fairy Tales |
| 1975 | Paul Fussell | The Great War and Modern Memory |
Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award
This award has also been presented as the Ivan Sandrof Award for Lifetime Achievement in Publishing and the Ivan Sandrof Award, Contribution to American Arts & Letters.
- 2006: John Leonard
- 2005: Bill Henderson, founder of Pushcart Press
- 2004: Louis D. Rubin, Jr., founder of Algonquin Press and the author and editor of more than 50 books
- 2003: Studs Terkel
- 2002: Richard Howard
- 2001: Jason Epstein
- 2000: Barney Rosset
- 1999: Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Pauline Kael
- 1998:
- 1997: Leslie Fiedler
- 1996: Albert Murray
- 1995: Alfred Kazin and Elizabeth Hardwick
- 1994: William Maxwell
- 1993:
- 1992:
- 1991:
- 1990: Donald Keene
- 1989: James Laughlin
- 1988:
- 1987: Robert Giroux
- 1986:
- 1985:
- 1984: The Library of America
- 1983:
- 1982: Leslie A. Marchand
- 1981:
Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing
- 2006: Steven G. Kellman
- 2005: Wyatt Mason, A contributor to Harper's, The New Yorker, The New Republic
- 2004: David Orr, a contributor to The New York Times Book Review and Poetry Magazine
- 2003: Scott McLemee
- 2002: Maureen N. McLane
- 2001: Michael Gorra
- 2000: Daniel Mendelsohn
- 1999: Benjamin Schwarz
- 1998: Albert Mobilio
- 1997: Thomas Mallon
- 1996: Dennis Drabelle
- 1995: Laurie Stone
- 1994: JoAnn C. Gutin
- 1993: Brigitte Frase
- 1992: Elizabeth Ward
- 1991: George Scialabba