From www.nationalbook.org: Established in 1950, the National Book Award is an American literary prize given to writers by writers every November and administered by the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization. Judges are published writers who are known to be doing great work in their genre or field, and in some cases, are past NBA Finalists or Winners.
2014 Redeployment by Phil Klay
2013 The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
2012: The Round House by Louise Erdrich
2011: Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
2010: Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon
2009: Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
2008: Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen
2007: Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
2006: The Echo Maker by Richard Powers
2005: Europe Central by William T. Vollmann
2004: The News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck
2003: The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard
2002: Three Junes by Julia Glass
2001: The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
2000: In America by Susan Sontag
1999: Waiting by Ha Jin
1998: Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
1997: Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
1996: Ship Fever and Other Stories by Andrea Barrett
1995: Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth
1994: A Frolic of His Own by William Gaddis
1993: The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
1992: All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
1991: Mating by Norman Rush
1990: Middle Passage by Charles Johnson
1989: Spartina by John Casey
1988: Paris Trout by Pete Dexter
1987: Paco's Story by Larry Heinemann
1986: World's Fair by E. L. Doctorow
1985: White Noise by Don DeLillo
1984: Victory over Japan: A Book of Stories by Ellen Gilchrist
1983: The Color Purple by Alice Walker
1982: Rabbit is Rich by John Updike
1981: Plains Song by Wright Morris
1980: Sophie's Choice by William Styron
1979: Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien
1978: Blood Tie by Mary Lee Settle
1977: The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner
1976: JR by William Gaddis
1975: (Joint Winners) Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone / The Hair of Harold Roux by Thomas Williams
1974: (Joint Winners) Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon / A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer
1973: (Joint Winners) Chimera by John Barth / Augustus by John Williams
1972: The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor by Flannery O'Connor
1971: Mr. Sammler's Planet by Saul Bellow
1970: Them by Joyce Carol Oates
1969: Steps by Jerzy Kosinski
1968: The Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder
1967: The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
1966: The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter
1965: Herzog by Saul Bellow
1964: The Centaur by John Updike
1963: Morte D'Urban by J.F. Powers
1962: The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
1961: The Waters of Kronos by Conrad Richter
1960: Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth
1959: The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud
1958: The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever
1957: The Field of Vision by Wright Morris
1956: Ten North Frederick by John O'Hara
1955: A Fable by William Faulkner
1954: The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
1953: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
1952: From Here to Eternity by James Jones
1951: The Collected Stories of William Faulkner by William Faulkner
1950: The Man With The Golden Arm by Nelson Algren
2014: Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China by Evan Osnos
2013: The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America by George Packer
2012: Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo
2011: The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt
2010: Just Kids by Patti Smith
2009: The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T. J. Stiles
2008: The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed
2007: Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner
2006: The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan
2005: The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
2004: Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age by Kevin Boyle
2003: Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuan Boy by Carlos Eire
2002: Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert A. Caro
2001: The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression by Andrew Solomon
2000: In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick
1999: Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II by John W. Dower
1998: Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball
1997: American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph J. Ellis
1996: An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War that Came Between Us by James Carroll
1995: The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism by Tina Rosenberg
1994: How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter by Sherwin B. Nuland
1993: United States: Essays 1952-1992 by Gore Vidal
1992: Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story by Paul Monette
1991: Freedom by Orlando Patterson
1990: The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance by Ron Chernow
1989: From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas L. Friedman
1988: A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan
1987: The Making of the Atom Bomb by Richard Rhodes
1986: Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez
1985: Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families by J. Anthony Lukas
1984: Andrew Jackson & the Course of American Democracy, 1833-1845 by Robert V. Remini
1983: Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin and the Great Depression by Alan Brinkley
1982: People of the Sacred Mountain: A History of the Northern Cheyenne Chiefs and Warrior Societies, 1830-1879 by Father Peter John Powell
1981: Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality by John Boswell
1980: The White House Years by Henry A. Kissinger
1979: Intellectual Life in the Colonial South, 1585-1763 by Richard Beale Davis
1978: The Path between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870-1914 by David McCullough
1977: World of Our Fathers by Irving Howe
1976: The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823 by David Brion Davis
1975: The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson by Bernard Bailyn
1974: The Shaping of the Historian by John Clive
1973: (Joint Winners) The Children of Pride by Robert Manson Myers / Judenrat by Isaiah Trunk
1972: Ordeal of the Union, Vols. VII & VIII: The Organized War, 1863-1864 and The Organized War to Victory by Allan Nevins
1971: Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom by James MacGregor Burns
1970: Huey Long by T. Harry Williams
1969: White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812 by Winthrop D. Jordan
1968: Memoirs: 1925-1950 by George F. Kennan
1967: The Enlightenment, Vol. I: The Rise of Modern Paganism by Peter Gay
1966: A Thousand Days by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
1965: The Life of Lenin by Louis Fischer
1964: The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community by William H. McNeill
1963: Henry James, Vol. II: The Conquest of London, Henry James, Vol. III: The Middle Years by Leon Edel
1962: The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations and Its Prospects by Lewis Mumford
1961: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer
1960: James Joyce by Richard Ellmann
1959: Mistress to an Age: A Life of Madame De Stael by J. Christopher Herold
1958: The Lion and the Throne by Catherine Drinker Bowen
1957: Russia Leaves the War by George F. Kennan
1956: An American in Italy by Herbert Kubly
1955: The Measure of Man by Joseph Wood Krutch
1954: A Stillness at Appomattox by Bruce Catton
1953: The Course of Empire by Bernard A. De Voto
1952: The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson
1951: Herman Melville by Newton Arvin
1950: Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph L. Rusk
2012: Bewilderment: New Poems and Translations by David Ferry
2011: Head Off & Split by Nikky Finney
2010: Lighthead by Terrance Hayes
2009: Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy by Keith Waldrop
2008: Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems by Mark Doty
2007: Time and Materials by Robert Hass
2006: Splay Anthem by Nathaniel Mackey
2005: Migration: New and Selected Poems by W.S. Merwin
2004: Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965-2003 by Jean Valentine
2003: The Singing by C.K. Williams
2002: In the Next Galaxy by Ruth Stone
2001: Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry by Alan Dugan
2000: Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000 by Lucille Clifton
1999: Vice: New & Selected Poems by Ai
1998: This Time: New and Selected Poems by Gerald Stern
1997: Effort at Speech: New & Selected Poems by William Meredith
1996: Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey, Poems 1991-1995 by Hayden Carruth
1995: Passing Through: The Later Poems by Stanley Kunitz
1994: A Worshipful Company of Fletchers by James Tate
1993: Garbage by A.R. Ammons
1992: New & Selected Poems by Mary Oliver
1991: What Work Is by Philip Levine
1990: (No Award)
1983: (Joint Winners) Selected Poems by Galway Kinnell /
Country Music: Selected Early Poems by Charles Wright
1982: Life Supports: New and Collected Poems by William Bronk
1981: The Need to Hold Still by Lisel Mueller
1980: Ashes by Philip Levine
1979: Mirabell: Books of Number by James Merrill
1978: The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov by Howard Nemerov
1977: Collected Poems, 1930-1976 by Richard Eberhart
1976: Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror by John Ashbery
1975: Presentation Piece by Marilyn Hacker
1974: (Joint Winners) The Fall of America: Poems of These States, 1965-1971 by Allen Ginsberg / Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971-1972 by Adrienne Rich
1973: Collected Poems, 1951-1971 by A. R. Ammons
1972: Selected Poems by Howard Moss; Frank O'Hara
1971: To See, To Take by Mona Van Duyn
1970: The Complete Poems by Elizabeth Bishop
1969: His Toy, His Dream, His Rest by John Berryman
1968: The Light Around the Body by Robert Bly
1967: Nights and Days by James Merrill
1966: Buckdancer's Choice: Poems by James Dickey
1965: The Far Field by Theodore Roethke
1964: Selected Poems by John Crowe Ransom
1963: Traveling Through the Dark by William Stafford
1962: Poems by Alan Dugan
1961: The Woman at the Washington Zoo by Randall Jarrell
1960: Life Studies by Robert Lowell
1959: Words for the Wind by Theodore Roethke
1958: Promises: Poems, 1954-1956 by Robert Penn Warren
1957: Things of the World by Richard Wilbur
1956: The Shield of Achilles by W.H. Auden
1955: The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens by Wallace Stevens
1954: Collected Poems by Conrad Aiken
1953: Collected Poems, 1917-1952 by Archibald MacLeish
1952: Collected Poems by Marianne Moore
1951: The Auroras of Autumn by Wallace Stevens
1950: Paterson: Book III and Selected Poems by William Carlos Williams