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.
These are categories. See below for obsolete categories.
| Category | Annals | Honor Rolls | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fiction | 2009 |
all
| Books | Authors |
| Nonfiction | 2009 |
all
| Books | Authors |
| Poetry | 2009 |
all
| Books | Authors |
| Young People’s Literature | 2009 |
all
| Books | Authors |
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.
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 | years | Annals | Honor Rolls | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Fiction | 1980–1985 | 1985 | all | Books | Authors |
| Mystery | only 1980 | 1980 | all | Books | Authors |
| Original Paperback | only 1983 | 1983 | all | Books | Authors |
| Science Fiction | only 1980 | 1980 | all | Books | Authors |
| Western | only 1980 | 1980 | all | Books | Authors |
| Nonfiction subcategories | |||||
| Arts and Letters | 1964[1]–1976 | 1976 | all | Books | Authors |
| Biography/Autobiography | 1972–1983 except 1976 | 1983 | all | Books | Authors |
| Current Interest[2] | 1972–1980 | 1980 | all | Books | Authors |
| History | 1972–1983 | 1983 | all | Books | Authors |
| History and Biography | 1964[1]–1971, 1976 | 1976 | all | Books | Authors |
| Philosophy and Religion | 1970, 1972–1975 | 1975 | all | Books | Authors |
| Reference | only 1980 | 1980 | all | Books | Authors |
| Religion/Inspirational | only 1980 | 1980 | all | Books | Authors |
| Science | 1969[1]–1975, 1980–1983 | 1983 | all | Books | Authors |
| Science/Philosophy/Religion | 1964–1968[1] | ||||
| Young People’s subcategories | |||||
| Children's Nonfiction | 1981–1983 | 1983 | all | Books | Authors |
| Children's Picture Book | 1982–1983 | 1983 | all | Books | Authors |
| Other subcategories | |||||
| Translation | 1967[1]–1983 except 1976 | 1983 | all | Books | Authors |
Event Calendar
| Event Calendar | |
|---|---|
| October | |
14 | NBA finalists |
| November | |
18 | NBA winners |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 The NBA annals currently go back to 1970, so annals prior to 1970 do not exist.
- ↑ Current Interest subcategory was actually named Contemporary Affairs (1972–1976), Contemporary Thought (1977–1979), and finally Current Interest (1980)
Categories: Awards | Book awards | Fiction book awards | Nonfiction book awards | Poetry book awards | Young Adult book awards | Biography book awards | History book awards | Mystery/Suspense book awards | Speculative Fiction book awards | Science Fiction book awards | Western book awards | Science/Technology book awards | Children's book awards | Event calendar definers

