National Book Award
From AwardAnnals
A consortium of book publishing groups sponsored the first annual National Book Awards Ceremony. Their goal was to enhance public awareness of exceptional books written by Americans, and to increase the popularity of reading in general. The Ceremony was held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. The year was 1950.
Since then, The National Book Awards have become the nation's preeminent literary prizes. Today, the Awards are bestowed every Autumn by the National Book Foundation in four genres. The winners are selected by five-member, independent judging panels for each genre, and receive a $10,000 cash award and a bronze sculpture.
Eligible books must be authored by a U.S. citizen and published in the U.S. in English.
Notes
- The madness of the early 1980s sometimes caused a book to be a finalist in two different years—in a hardcover category and later in paperback. To protect the integrity of the ranking in the old site, those books are listed only in the year for which they are a hardcover finalist, unless they actually won as a paperback. One of these days, these books should be added to the paperback annal with a score of “nominee*” and a note.
Award categories
Current subcategories
| Fiction : | 2007 | Annals | Ranked books | Ranked authors |
| Nonfiction: | 2007 | Annals | Ranked books | Ranked authors |
| Poetry: | 2007 | Annals | Ranked books | Ranked authors |
| Young People’s Literature: | 2007 | Annals | Ranked books | Ranked authors |
Obsolete subcategories
The National Book Awards have experimented with different categories over the years. It began with three categories in 1950, began adding categories in 1964, reached a peak of twenty-seven categories in 1980, and cut back rather suddenly to three categories in 1984. Needless to say, so many categories makes navigation of this site rather complicated.
| Fiction subcategories | effective years | |||
| First Fiction: | 1980–1985 | Annals | Ranked books | Ranked authors |
| Mystery: | only 1980 | Annals | Ranked books | Ranked authors |
| Original Paperback: | only 1983 | Annals | Ranked books | Ranked authors |
| Science Fiction: | only 1980 | Annals | Ranked books | Ranked authors |
| Western: | only 1980 | Annals | Ranked books | Ranked authors |
| Nonfiction subcategories | ||||
| Arts and Letters: | 1964[1]–1976 | Annals | Ranked books | Ranked authors |
| Biography/Autobiography: | 1972–1983 except 1976 | Annals | Ranked books | Ranked authors |
| Current Interest [2] | 1972–1980 | Annals | Ranked books | Ranked authors |
| History: | 1972–1983 | Annals | Ranked books | Ranked authors |
| History and Biography: | 1964[1]–1971, 1976 | Annals | Ranked books | Ranked authors |
| Philosophy and Religion: | 1970, 1972–1975 | Annals | Ranked books | Ranked authors |
| Reference: | only 1980 | Annals | Ranked books | Ranked authors |
| Religion/Inspirational: | only 1980 | Annals | Ranked books | Ranked authors |
| Science: | 1969[1]–1975, 1980–1983 | Annals | Ranked books | Ranked authors |
| Science/Philosophy/Religion: | 1964–1968[1] | |||
| Young People’s subcategories | ||||
| Children's Nonfiction: | 1981–1983 | Annals | Ranked books | Ranked authors |
| Children's Picture Book: | 1982–1983 | Annals | Ranked books | Ranked authors |
| Other | ||||
| Translation: | 1967–1983 except 1976 | Annals | Ranked books | Ranked authors |
Event Calendar
| Event Calendar | |
|---|---|
| October | |
11 | NBA finalists |
| November | |
9 | NBA winners |

