The 25 best National Book Critics Circle Award winners
The 25 highest-ranked National Book Critics Circle Award winners, fiction and nonfiction in our ranking of 3,056, scored on how much readers love them, their prize, best-list and bestseller record, and current buzz. We rank 69 National Book Critics Circle Award winners in all. How we rank
- 1
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City93.3Must-Read ScoreEvicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
In 2008 and 2009, sociologist Matthew Desmond moved into a trailer park on Milwaukee's south side, and then an inner-city rooming house, to live alongside the people he was studying.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) winner (2017)NBCC Award (Nonfiction) winner (2016)NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 2
Americanah92.0Must-Read ScoreAmericanah
Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love as teenagers in military-ruled Nigeria.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Fiction) winner (2013)79 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2013Women's Prize for Fiction finalist (2014)NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 3
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland91.9Must-Read ScoreSay Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
In 1972, Jean McConville, a widowed mother of ten, was dragged from her Belfast home by masked members of the IRA and never seen again.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Nonfiction) winner (2019)17 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2019NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 4
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration91.5Must-Read ScoreThe Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
Between World War I and 1970, about six million Black Americans left the South for the cities of the North and West, one of the largest migrations in American history.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Nonfiction) winner (2010)39 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2010NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 5
The Making of the Atomic Bomb91.3Must-Read ScoreThe Making of the Atomic Bomb
The full story of how the atomic bomb came to be, from the discovery around 1900 that atoms held unimaginable energy, through the physicists who raced to understand it, often fleeing Nazi Europe as they did, to the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, the first test at Trinity, and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) winner (1988)National Book Award (Nonfiction) winner (1987)NBCC Award (Nonfiction) winner (1987)Modern Library 100 Best Nonfiction - 6
The Passage of Power90.5Must-Read ScoreThe Passage of Power
The fourth volume of Robert Caro's life of Lyndon Johnson covers 1958 to 1964.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Biography) winner (2012)#1 New York Times bestseller (2 weeks at #1)National Book Award (Nonfiction) finalist (2012)NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 7
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer90.2Must-Read ScoreAmerican Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
The definitive biography of J.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (Biography) winner (2006)NBCC Award (Biography) winner (2005)#1 New York Times bestseller (5 weeks at #1) - 8
Hamnet87.2Must-Read ScoreHamnet
In Stratford in 1596, Agnes, an unusual woman who keeps bees and understands herbs, has three children with her husband, a Latin tutor who now works in London.
Why it made the listWomen's Prize for Fiction winner (2020)NBCC Award (Fiction) winner (2020) - 9
266687.2Must-Read Score2666
Roberto Bolaño's last novel, published after his death, is made of five connected parts.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Fiction) winner (2008)NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 10
Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity86.9Must-Read ScoreFar From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity
Andrew Solomon spent ten years interviewing more than three hundred families whose children were profoundly different from their parents: children who are deaf, have dwarfism, Down syndrome, autism or schizophrenia, are prodigies, were conceived in rape, committed crimes, or are transgender.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Nonfiction) winner (2012)NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 11
Parting the Waters : America in the King Years 1954-6386.7Must-Read ScoreParting the Waters : America in the King Years 1954-63
The first volume of Taylor Branch's monumental history of the civil rights movement, covering 1954 to 1963: from the Montgomery bus boycott that made a young Martin Luther King Jr.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (History) winner (1989)NBCC Award (Nonfiction) winner (1988)National Book Award (Nonfiction) finalist (1989) - 12
The Stories of John Cheever86.6Must-Read ScoreThe Stories of John Cheever
Sixty-one stories from the writer known as the Chekhov of the suburbs, published over three decades in The New Yorker.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (1979)National Book Award (Fiction) winner (1981)NBCC Award (Fiction) winner (1978) - 13
How the Word Is Passed86.5Must-Read ScoreHow the Word Is Passed
Poet and historian Clint Smith travels to places across America where the history of slavery is remembered, or misremembered: Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, a Louisiana plantation turned museum, Angola prison built on a former plantation, a Confederate cemetery, Galveston where Juneteenth began, New York City and Senegal's Gorée Island.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Nonfiction) winner (2021)#1 New York Times bestseller (1 week at #1)Goodreads Choice (history biography) finalist (2021) - 14
Song of Solomon85.7Must-Read ScoreSong of Solomon
Milkman Dead is born the day after a neighborhood eccentric leaps from a rooftop trying to fly, and for the rest of his life he, too, will be trying to fly.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Fiction) winner (1977)Guardian 100 Best Novels in EnglishGuardian 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read - 15
Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space85.6Must-Read ScoreChallenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space
On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart seventy-three seconds after launch, killing all seven crew, including Christa McAuliffe, a New Hampshire teacher chosen to be the first ordinary citizen in space.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Nonfiction) winner (2024)Goodreads Choice (history biography) finalist (2024) - 16
Know My Name84.7Must-Read ScoreKnow My Name
In 2015 Chanel Miller was sexually assaulted while unconscious on Stanford's campus.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Memoir) winner (2019) - 17
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois84.3Must-Read ScoreThe Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
Ailey Pearl Garfield grows up in a northern city but spends her summers in Chicasetta, the small Georgia town where her mother's family has lived for generations.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Fiction) winner (2021)Goodreads Choice (historical fiction) finalist (2021) - 18
"A Problem From Hell": America and the Age of Genocide84.2Must-Read Score"A Problem From Hell": America and the Age of Genocide
Samantha Power, then a young journalist and later U.S.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) winner (2003)NBCC Award (Nonfiction) winner (2002) - 19
My Friends83.9Must-Read ScoreMy Friends
In 1984, Khaled, a young Libyan studying in Edinburgh, joins a protest outside the Libyan embassy in London and is shot when gunmen inside open fire.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Fiction) winner (2024)National Book Award (Fiction) finalist (2024)Booker Prize longlist (2024) - 20
Mother Mary Comes to Me83.6Must-Read ScoreMother Mary Comes to Me
Arundhati Roy's memoir of her mother, Mary Roy: a fierce, brilliant, impossible woman who left an abusive marriage, raised her children alone in Kerala, founded a celebrated school, and won a landmark court case that gave Syrian Christian women in India equal inheritance rights.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Memoir) winner (2025)Goodreads Choice (memoir autobiography) finalist (2025) - 21
Patriot: A Memoir83.4Must-Read ScorePatriot: A Memoir
Alexei Navalny began writing this memoir after surviving a near-fatal poisoning in 2020.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Memoir) winner (2024) - 22
Arctic Dreams82.9Must-Read ScoreArctic Dreams
Barry Lopez spent years traveling in the Arctic, and here he writes about it: its strange light and landscapes, the animals that live there, from musk oxen and polar bears to narwhals and migrating birds, the explorers who came and often died, and the Inuit people who made it home.
Why it made the listNational Book Award (Nonfiction) winner (1986)NBCC Award (Nonfiction) winner (1986) - 23
The Path to Power82.0Must-Read ScoreThe Path to Power
The first volume of Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson follows him from his impoverished childhood in the harsh Texas Hill Country through his relentless rise as a young congressman, ending with his first, failed Senate race in 1941.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Nonfiction) winner (1982) - 24
Voices From Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster81.8Must-Read ScoreVoices From Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster
On April 26, 1986, a reactor exploded at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Soviet Ukraine.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Nonfiction) winner (2005) - 25
How to Say Babylon: A Memoir81.7Must-Read ScoreHow to Say Babylon: A Memoir
Safiya Sinclair grew up in Jamaica as the eldest daughter of a reggae musician who became a strict Rastafarian.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Memoir) winner (2023)Goodreads Choice (memoir autobiography) finalist (2023)
