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.
This is the list of fiction winners. Those I have read are in red. Those currently on my TBR shelf are in blue.
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 September 22, 2011.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 find it interesting that there are so many categories but almost all people ever associate with the award is the fiction part. Which seems like a pity, because recognition of "criticism" books sounds fascinating. Perhaps I'll make that a goal: to read as many NBCC award winners not in the fiction category as possible...
ReplyDeleteI do have to wonder, though, why "Atonement" is in a darker shade of red.
Good goal!
ReplyDeleteHmmmmm . . . Yes, Atonment is darker red. I read it more intensely? No. It looks like the blues are different shades too. All problems from blogging in the dark. :) I'll get around to fixing it one of these days.
I have just reviewed Citizen by Claudia Rankine, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry:
ReplyDeletehttps://bethsbookishthoughts.blogspot.com/2019/03/review-citizen-american-lyric.html
I have not read any of the novels, though.