National Book Award
2019 Winner
2014 Winner
- Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
- Sabrina & Corina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine (4.5 stars)
- Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
- The Other Americans by Laila Lalami
- Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips (4 stars)
- Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
- Black Light by Kimberly King Parsons
- The Need by Helen Phillips
- On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
- The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
- So Many Olympic Exertions by Anelise Chen
- The Parisian by Isabella Hammad
- Such Good Work by Johannes Lichtman
- Lot by Bryan Washington
- Happy Like This by Ashley Wurzbacher
- The Friend by Sigrid Nunez
- A Lucky Man by Jamel Brinkley
- Florida by Lauren Groff
- Where the Dead Sit Talking by Brandon Hobson
- The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai (4.5 stars)
- Gun Love by Jennifer Clement
- The Boatbuilder by Daniel Gumbiner
- An American Marriage by Tayari Jones (4.5 stars)
- There There by Tommy Orange
- Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires
- Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
- Sonora by Hannah Lillith Assadi
- Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
- The Golden State by Lydia Kiesling (4.5 stars)
- Sadness Is a White Bird by Moriel Rothman-Zecher
- Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
- Dark at the Crossing by Elliot Ackerman
- The Leavers by Lisa Ko
- Pachinko Min Jin Lee
- Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
- The King Is Always Above the People by Daniel Alarcon
- Miss Burma by Charmaine Craig
- Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan
- A Kind of Freedom by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
- Barren Island by Carol Zoref
- What It Means When a Man Falls From the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah
- Jillian by Halle Butler (4 stars)
- What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons (4.5 stars)
- When Watched by Leopoldine Core
- Chemistry by Weike Wang (4 stars)
- The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
- The Throwback Special by Chris Bachelder
- News of the World by Paulette Giles (4 stars)
- The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan
- Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson (4.5 stars)
- What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell (3.5 stars)
- Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett
- The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth McKenzie
- Sweet Lamb of Heaven by Lydia Millet
- Miss Jane by Brad Watson
- The Mothers by Brit Bennett (4.5 stars)
- Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
- Prodigals by Greg Jackson
- Transoceanic Lights by S. Li
- Hall of Small Mammals by Thomas Pierce
- Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson
- Refund by Karen E. Bender
- The Turner House by Angela Flournoy (4 stars)
- Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff (5 stars)
- A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
- A Cure for Suicide by Jesse Ball
- Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg (4.5 stars)
- Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson
- Honeydew by Edith Pearlman
- Mislaid by Nell Zink (4 stars)
2015 5 Under 35
- Young Skins by Colin Barrett
- The Turner House by Angela Flournoy (4 stars)
- Call Me Home by Megan Kruse
- The Hopeful by Tracy O'Neill (4.5 stars)
- Fra Keeler by Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi
- Redeployment by Phil Klay (4 stars)
- An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine
- All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (4.5 stars)
- Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (3 stars)
- Lila by Marilynne Robinson (2.5 stars)
- The UnAmericans by Molly Antopol (4 stars)
- Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle
- Thunderstruck and Other Stories by Elizabeth McCracken
- Orfeo by Richard Powers
- Some Luck by Jane Smiley (4.25 stars)
- Panic in a Suitcase by Yelena Akhitorskaya
- From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant by Alex Gilvarry
- Redeployment by Phil Klay (4 stars)
- Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli
- Night at the Fiestas by Kirstin Valdez Quade
- The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
- The Flame Throwers by Rachel Kushner
- The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
- Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon
- Tenth of December by George Saunders
- Pacific by Tom Drury
- The End of the Point by Elizabeth Graver (5 stars)
- A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
- Someone by Alice McDermott
- Fools by Joan Silber
- The UnAmericans by Molly Antopol (4 stars)
- We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo (3.5 stars)
- The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin (4.5 stars)
- Hunters in the Snow by Daisy Hildyard
- Love Me Back by Merritt Tierce
- The Round House by Louise Erdrich
- This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz (3 stars)
- A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers
- Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain (4 stars)
- The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers (4.5 stars)
- A Partial History of Lost Causes by Jennifer duBois
- The Book of Life by Stuart Nadler
- Vaclev & Lena by Haley Tanner
- We the Animals by Justin Torres
- Battleborn by Claire Vaye Watkins
- Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward (4 stars)
- The Sojourn by Andrew Krivak (4 stars)
- The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht (3.5 stars)
- The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka (4.5 stars)
- Binocular Vision: New & Selected Stories by Edith Pearlman (4 stars)
- The People of Forever Are Not Afraid by Shani Boianjiu
- Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self by Danielle Evans
- The Walking People by Mary Beth Keane
- Bear Down, Bear North: Alaska Stories by Melinda Moustakis
- Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley
2010 Fiction Winner
- Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon (2 stars)
- Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey
- Great House by Nicole Krauss (4 stars)
- So Much for That by Lionel Shriver (5 stars)
- I Hotel by Karen Tei Yamashita
- The Sweet Relief of Missing Children by Sarah Braunstein (5 stars)
- The Orange Eats Creeps by Grace Krilanovich
- The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obrecht (3.5 stars)
- How to Escape from a Leper's Colony by Tiphanie Yanique (4 stars)
- Once the Shore by Paul Yoon
- Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
- American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell
- In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin (3.5 stars)
- Lark & Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips
- Far North by Marcel Theroux