First awarded in 1976, 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.
I confess I bear a grudge against the NBCC Award for inflicting Being Dead, All the Pretty Horses, and Song of Solomon on me -- all which I read only because they were on this list. On the other hand, I only read Motherless Brooklyn because it was here, and I loved that book.
This is the list of fiction winners. Those I have read are in red. Those on my TBR shelf are in blue.
2020 Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
2019 Everything Inside by Edwidge Danticat
2018 Milkman by Anna Burns
2018 Milkman by Anna Burns
2017 Improvement by Joan Silber
2016 LaRose by Louise Erdrich
2015 The Sellout by Paul Beatty
2014 Lila by Marilynne Robinson
2013 Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
2012 Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain
2011 Binocular Vision: New & Selected Stories by Edith Pearlman
2010 A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
2009 Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (reviewed here)
2008 2666 by Robert Bolano
2007 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
2006 The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
2005 The March by E.L. Doctorow
2004 Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (reviewed here)
2003 The Known World by Edward P. Jones
2002 Atonement by Ian McEwan
2001 Austerlitz by Winfried Georg Sebald
2000 Being Dead by Jim Crace
1999 Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
1998 The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro
1997 The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
1996 Women in Their Beds by Gina Berriault
1995 Mrs. Ted Bliss by Stanley Elkin
1994 The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
1993 A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines
1992 All the Pretty Horses by Cormac Mccarthy (reviewed here)
1991 A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
1990 Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
1989 Billy Bathgate by E. L. Doctorow
1988 The Middleman and Other Stories by Bharati Mukherjee
1987 The Counterlife by Philip Roth
1986 Kate Vaiden by Reynolds Price
1985 The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
1984 Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich
1983 Ironweed by William Kennedy
1982 George Mills by Stanley Elkin
1981 Rabbit is Rich by John Updike
1980 The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard
1979 The Year of the French by Thomas Flanagan
1978 The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever (reviewed here)
1977 Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
1976 October Light by John C Gardner
Last updated on December 31, 2018.
If you would like to be listed here, please leave a comment with links to your progress reports or reviews and I will add them here.
2016 LaRose by Louise Erdrich
2015 The Sellout by Paul Beatty
2014 Lila by Marilynne Robinson
2013 Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
2012 Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain
2011 Binocular Vision: New & Selected Stories by Edith Pearlman
2010 A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
2009 Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (reviewed here)
2008 2666 by Robert Bolano
2007 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
2006 The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
2005 The March by E.L. Doctorow
2004 Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (reviewed here)
2003 The Known World by Edward P. Jones
2002 Atonement by Ian McEwan
2001 Austerlitz by Winfried Georg Sebald
2000 Being Dead by Jim Crace
1999 Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
1998 The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro
1997 The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
1996 Women in Their Beds by Gina Berriault
1995 Mrs. Ted Bliss by Stanley Elkin
1994 The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
1993 A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines
1992 All the Pretty Horses by Cormac Mccarthy (reviewed here)
1991 A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
1990 Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
1989 Billy Bathgate by E. L. Doctorow
1988 The Middleman and Other Stories by Bharati Mukherjee
1987 The Counterlife by Philip Roth
1986 Kate Vaiden by Reynolds Price
1985 The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
1984 Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich
1983 Ironweed by William Kennedy
1982 George Mills by Stanley Elkin
1981 Rabbit is Rich by John Updike
1980 The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard
1979 The Year of the French by Thomas Flanagan
1978 The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever (reviewed here)
1977 Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
1976 October Light by John C Gardner
NOTE
Last updated on December 31, 2018.
OTHERS READING THE BOOKS ON THIS LIST
If you would like to be listed here, please leave a comment with links to your progress reports or reviews and I will add them here.
I haven't read any of these, but in my defense I was disappointed from many award winning books I've read.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ManOfLaBook.com
Have read a few of these -- I did love the Rabbit series by Updike :)
ReplyDeleteMan: I've read a lot of these, but not because I found them on this list. For instance, I read the Rabbit novels because they were on the Modern Library's Top 100 list and I read Atonement because I love McEwan's books. Of the 4 that I read only because they were on this list, I really disliked 3. That's why I have a grudge. But, like you, I have a similar issue with other awards.
ReplyDeleteGirl: Me too! The Rabbit books are some of my all-time favorites.
It's interesting to me to see this list of the NBCC fiction winners, because so many of them are largely forgotten/overlooked by readers today. I tend to value the literary content judgment of the NBCC over that of the NBA or the Pulitzer, but I'm not entirely sure why...
ReplyDeleteCrowe: So many books that won prizes seem to fall out of favor, just like any old book. But it is funny to think about that. It seems that winning a major prize should be a promise of long-lasting popularity.
ReplyDelete