The National Book Award for Fiction -- LIST

THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION

The National Book Foundation has awarded the National Book Awards to American writers since 1950. The Awards currently honor authors in the categories of Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People's Literature. There have been other categories in the past.

I am not going to keep updating the winners after 2021. My enthusiasm for prize-winners is waning with the 2020s. I plan to focus my efforts on reading the winners up to 2020 then declare victory and move on to other bookish projects.

I am working my way through the Fiction winners. So far, I've read 46 of the winners. The winners through 2021 are listed below, with notes about whether I've finished a book, it is on my TBR shelf, or it is available as an audiobook from the library on Overdrive.

How many of these have you read? See any favorites?

2021 Hell of a Book by Jason Mott FINISHED

2020 Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu FINISHED

2019 Trust Exercise by Susan Choi ON OVERDRIVE

2018 The Friend by Sigrid Nunez FINISHED

2017 Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward FINISHED

2016 The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead FINISHED

2015 Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson ON OVERDRIVE

2014 Redeployment by Phil Klay ON OVERDRIVE

2013 The Good Lord Bird by James McBride ON OVERDRIVE

2012 The Round House by Louise Erdrich ON OVERDRIVE

2011 Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward FINISHED

2010 Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon (reviewed here) FINISHED

2009 Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann (reviewed here) FINISHED

2008 Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen TBR SHELF

2007 Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson FINISHED

2006 The Echo Maker by Richard Powers FINISHED

2005 Europe Central by William T. Vollmann TBR SHELF

2004 The News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck TBR SHELF

2003 The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard FINISHED

2002 Three Junes by Julia Glass FINISHED

2001 The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen FINISHED

2000 In America by Susan Sontag TBR SHELF

1999 Waiting by Ha Jin FINISHED

1998 Charming Billy by Alice McDermott FINISHED

1997 Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier (reviewed here) FINISHED

1996 Ship Fever and Other Stories by Andrea Barrett FINISHED

1995 Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth FINISHED

1994 A Frolic of His Own by William Gaddis

1993 The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx FINISHED

1992 All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy (reviewed here) FINISHED

1991 Mating by Norman Rush FINISHED

1990 Middle Passage by Charles Johnson (reviewed here) FINISHED

1989 Spartina by John Casey FINISHED

1988 Paris Trout by Pete Dexter FINISHED

1987 Paco's Story by Larry Heinemann ON OVERDRIVE

1986 World's Fair by E.L. Doctorow TBR SHELF

1985 White Noise by Don Delillo ON OVERDRIVE

1984 Victory Over Japan by Ellen Gilchrist TBR SHELF

1983 The Color Purple by Alice Walker FINISHED

1982 Rabbit is Rich by John Updike FINISHED

1981 Plains Song by Wright Morris TBR SHELF

1980 Sophie's Choice by William Styron (reviewed here) FINISHED

1979 Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien FINISHED

1978 Blood Tie by Mary Lee Settle FINISHED

1977 The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner (reviewed here) FINISHED

1976 JR by William Gaddis

1975 The Hair of Harold Roux by Thomas Williams (reviewed here) FINISHED

1975 Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone FINISHED

1974 Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon ON OVERDRIVE

1974 A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer TBR SHELF

1973 Augustus by John Williams ON OVERDRIVE

1973 Chimera by John Barth TBR SHELF

1972 The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor TBR SHELF

1971 Mr. Sammler's Planet by Saul Bellow (reviewed here) FINISHED

1970 Them by Joyce Carol Oates TBR SHELF

1969 Steps by Jerzy Kosinski

1968 The Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder ON OVERDRIVE

1967 The Fixer by Bernard Malamud (reviewed here) FINISHED

1966 The Collected Stories by Katherine Anne Porter TBR SHELF

1965 Herzog by Saul Bellow FINISHED

1964 The Centaur by John Updike (reviewed here) FINISHED

1963 Morte d'Urban by J.F. Powers FINISHED

1962 The Moviegoer by Walker Percy FINISHED

1961 The Waters of Kronos by Conrad Richter

1960 Goodbye Columbus by Philip Roth (reviewed here) FINISHED

1959 The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud FINISHED

1958 Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever FINISHED

1957 The Field of Vision by Wright Morris TBR SHELF

1956 Ten North Frederick by John O'Hara FINISHED

1955 A Fable by William Faulkner

1954 The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow (reviewed here) FINISHED

1953 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison FINISHED

1952 From Here to Eternity by James Jones FINISHED

1951 The Collected Stories by William Faulkner ON OVERDRIVE

1950 The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren (reviewed here) FINISHED


NOTES

Updated October 26, 2023. This is a redo of the list I first posted in 2009. 

Hidden gems for me are Lord of Misrule, The Hair of Harold Roux, and Blood Tie.

RELATED POSTS

If you would like your related posts to be listed here, please leave a comment with links to your reviews of these books or the like and I will add them here.

List: Campus Novels

CAMPUS NOVELS

Actually being a college professor holds no interest for me. I wasn't even particularly fond of being a college student. I don't want to live in the Ivory Tower, just visit. I love novels featuring college professors, set on college campuses, with an academic theme or plot. The Campus Novel is my favorite sub-genre.

That's why I keep a running list of Campus Novels. These are books I have read or want to read. If you have suggestions for additions to this list, please send them my way!

I'm not so keen on novels featuring students on campus. I read a distinction once (I think made by David Lodge) between "Campus Novels" that focus on college professors and other faculty, and "Varsity Novels" that focus on student life. The later don't appeal to me much. There may be a few on my list that could cross over, but most fall on the professor side of the line.

Here's my list, in alphabetical order by author's name. I made notes about whether I've read it, it's on my TBR shelf, or if it is available as an audiobook from my library.  Any favorites? If you have ideas for additions, please leave a comment.

Crescent by Diana Abu-Jaber 

Jake's Thing by Kingsley Amis FINISHED

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis FINISHED TWICE

One Fat Englishman by Kingsley Amis (reviewed here) FINISHED

Death of an Old Goat by Robert Barnard

End of the Road by John Barth

The Dean's December by Saul Bellow FINISHED

More Die of Heartbreak by Saul Bellow TBR SHELF

Herzog by Saul Bellow FINISHED

Ravelstein by Saul Bellow FINISHED

The Morning After Death by Nicholas Blake

Eating People is Wrong by Malcolm Bradbury FINISHED

The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury TBR SHELF

Possession by A. S. Byatt FINISHED

The Professor's House by Willa Cather FINISHED
 
Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon TBR SHELF

Falconer by John Cheever TBR SHELF

Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee FINISHED

The Archivist by Martha Cooley

Holy Disorders by Edmund Crispin (and the rest of his Gervase Fen series) SOME ON TBR SHELF

Dreaming of the Bones by Deborah Crombie

In the Last Analysis by Amanda Cross (and the rest of her Kate Fansler series) PARTLY FINISHED

The Rebel Angels by Robertson Davies (reviewed here) FINISHED

What's Bred in the Bone by Robertson Davies FINISHED

The Lyre of Orpheus by Robertson Davies FINISHED

White Noise by Don DeLillo ON OVERDRIVE

Death is Now My Neighbour by Colin Dexter (from his Inspector Morse series)

The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn by Colin Dexter (from his Inspector Morse series)

The English School of Murder by Ruth Dudley Edwards

The Trick of It by Michael Frayn

Death at the President's Lodging by Michael Innes FINISHED

The Weight of the Evidence by Michael Innes

A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood (reviewed here) FINISHED

Redback by Howard Jacobson

Pictures from an Institution by Randall Jarrell

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova FINISHED

My Latest Grievance by Elinor Lipman (reviewed here) FINISHED

The British Museum is Falling Down by David Lodge FINISHED

Thinks by David Lodge TBR SHELF

Deaf Sentence by David Lodge (reviewed here) FINISHED

Changing Places by David Lodge (reviewed here) FINISHED

Small World by David Lodge FINISHED

Nice Work by David Lodge FINISHED

The War Between the Tates by Alison Lurie

A New Life by Bernard Malamud

All Souls by Javier Marias

An Oxford Tragedy by J. C. Masterman FINISHED

The Groves of Academe by Mary McCarthy (reviewed here) FINISHED

Irish Tenure by Ralph McInerny (and the rest of his Notre Dame mystery series)

The Search Committee by Ralph McInerny

Prisoner in a Red-Rose Chain by Jeffrey Moore

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov FINISHED

Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov FINISHED

The Lost Journals of Sylvia Plath by Kimberly Knutsen TBR SHELF

Blue Angel by Francine Prose FINISHED

Japanese by Spring by Ishmael Reed

Letting Go by Philip Roth FINISHED

The Professor of Desire by Philip Roth FINISHED

The Breast by Philip Roth

The Dying Animal by Philip Roth FINISHED

The Human Stain by Philip Roth (reviewed here) FINISHED

That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo FINISHED

Straight Man by Richard Russo ON OVERDRIVE

The Small Room by May Sarton FINISHED

Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers FINISHED

Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher FINISHED

The Shakespeare Requirement by Julie Schumacher ON OVERDRIVE

Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe

Grantchester Grind by Tom Sharpe  

Moo by Jane Smiley FINISHED

On Beauty by Zadie Smith (reviewed here) FINISHED

The Masters by C.P. Snow FINISHED

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner FINISHED

The Secret History by Donna Tartt FINISHED

Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey TBR SHELF

Memories of the Ford Administration by John Updike TBR SHELF

Stoner by John Williams FINISHED

The Hair of Harold Roux by Thomas Williams (reviewed here) FINISHED

Anglo-Saxon Attitudes by Angus Wilson FINISHED


NOTES

Updated December 28, 2022. If you have suggestions for additions to this list, please leave a comment!

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Winners -- BOOK LIST

THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION

The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (formerly called the Prize for the Novel) has been awarded since 1918 for distinguished works of fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life.

The prize is named after its founder, legendary American publisher Joseph Pulitzer. No prize was awarded in several years, most recently in 2012. The prize is currently $15,000.

This is one of my favorite books lists, but I am not going to update the winners after 2021. My enthusiasm for prize-winners is waning with the 2020s. I may focus my efforts on reading the winners up to 2020 then declare victory and move on to other bookish projects.

So far, I've read 68 of the winners. The list of the winners through 2021 is below, with notes about whether I've read it, it is currently on my TBR shelf, or if it is available as an audiobook from my library.

The Prize winners since 1918 are:

2021: The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich ON OVERDRIVE

2020: The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead FINISHED

 
2019: The Overstory by Richard Powers FINISHED

2018: Less by Andrew Sean Greer FINISHED

2017: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead FINISHED

2016: The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen FINISHED

2015: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doer FINISHED

2014: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt FINISHED

2013: The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson FINISHED

2011: A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan FINISHED

2010: Tinkers by Paul Harding (reviewed here) FINISHED

2009: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (reviewed here) FINISHED

2008: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz FINISHED

2007: The Road by Cormack McCarthy

2006: March by Geraldine Brooks (reviewed here) FINISHED

2005: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (reviewed here) FINISHED

2004: The Known World by Edward P. Jones FINISHED

2003: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides  FINISHED

2002: Empire Falls by Richard Russo (reviewed here) FINISHED

2001: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon FINISHED

2000: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri FINISHED

1999: The Hours by Michael Cunningham FINISHED

1998: American Pastoral by Philip Roth FINISHED

1997: Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser (reviewed here) FINISHED

1996: Independence Day by Richard Ford FINISHED

1995: The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields FINISHED

1994: The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx FINISHED

1993: A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler TBR SHELF

1992: A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley FINISHED

1991: Rabbit at Rest by John Updike FINISHED

1990: The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos FINISHED

1989: Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler (reviewed here) FINISHED

1988: Beloved by Toni Morrison FINISHED

1987: A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor (short review here) FINISHED

1986: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry FINISHED

1985: Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie FINISHED

1984: Ironweed by William Kennedy FINISHED

1983: The Color Purple by Alice Walker FINISHED

1982: Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike FINISHED

1981: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy O'Toole FINISHED

1980: The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer ON OVERDRIVE

1979: The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever (reviewed here) FINISHED

1978: Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson TBR SHELF

1976: Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow (reviewed here) FINISHED

1975: The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara ON OVERDRIVE

1973: The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty TBR SHELF

1972: Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner FINISHED

1970: Collected Stories by Jean Stafford

1969: House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday FINISHED

1968: The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron FINISHED

1967: The Fixer by Bernard Malamud (reviewed here) FINISHED

1966: Collected Stories by Katherine Anne Porter

1965: The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau FINISHED

1963: The Reivers by William Faulkner TBR SHELF

1962: The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor

1961: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee FINISHED

1960: Advise and Consent by Allen Drury (reviewed here) FINISHED

1959: The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor FINISHED

1958: A Death in the Family by James Agee FINISHED

1956: Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor

1955: A Fable by William Faulkner

1953: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway FINISHED

1952: The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk ON OVERDRIVE

1951: The Town by Conrad Richter 

1950: The Way West by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.

1949: Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens FINISHED

1948: Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener FINISHED

1947: All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren (reviewed here) FINISHED

1945: A Bell for Adano by John Hersey (reviewed here) FINISHED

1944: Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin TBR SHELF

1943: Dragon's Teeth by Upton Sinclair FINISHED

1942: In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow

1940: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck FINISHED

1939: The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

1938: The Late George Apley by John Phillips Marquand FINISHED

1937: Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell FINISHED

1936: Honey in the Horn by Harold L. Davis TBR SHELF

1935: Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson FINISHED

1934: Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller

1933: The Store by T. S. Stribling TBR SHELF

1932: The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck FINISHED

1931: Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes TBR SHELF

1930: Laughing Boy by Oliver Lafarge TBR SHELF

1929: Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin

1928: The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder FINISHED

1927: Early Autumn by Louis Bromfield FINISHED

1926: Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis FINISHED

1925: So Big by Edna Ferber FINISHED

1924: The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson

1923: One of Ours by Willa Cather FINISHED

1922: Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington (reviewed here) FINISHED

1921: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton FINISHED

1919: The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington FINISHED

1918: His Family by Ernest Poole


NOTE

Updated July 3, 2025. 

OTHERS READING THE PULITZER WINNERS

If you are working on reading all the Pulitzer fiction winners and want to list your blog or related link here, please leave a comment with the link and I will add it.

Favorite Author: Wallace Stegner

Wallace Stegner (1909 to 1993) was an American historian, novelist, and short story writer, best known for writing about the American West. He founded the creative writing program at Stanford. He wrote 37 books of history, memoir, general non-fiction, short stories, and novels.

When I read Stegner's novels, I love them. But years go by when I forget to read any of his books, so I want to be more intentional about working through his novels, at least.  It looks like it will be hard to find some of his earlier works

Those I have read are in red; those on my TBR shelf are in blue.

WALLACE STEGNER NOVELS

Remembering Laughter (1937)
The Potter's House (1938; out of print)
On a Darkling Plain (1940; out of print)
Fire and Ice (1941; out of print)
The Big Rock Candy Mountain (1943)
Second Growth (1947)
The Preacher and the Slave (1950; reissued as Joe Hill: A Biographical Novel)
A Shooting Star (1961)
All the Little Live Things (1967)
Angle of Repose (1971; winner of the Pulitzer Prize)
The Spectator Bird (1976; winner of the National Book Award; reviewed here)
Recapitulation (1979)
Crossing to Safety (1987; on the Modern Library's Top 100 list)

OTHER STEGNER FANS

If you would like your reviews of Stegner books or other Stegner-related posts listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it. 

Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday this holiday weekend! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event (details here).

Tasha at Book Obsessed is hosting in July. Please stop by Tasha's busy blog, where she focuses on romance novels, with some mystery and suspense thrown in.

I was in Idaho last week, filing a new case, and stopped by a couple of local libraries to check out their sale shelves.  The Boise library has a particularly good Friends of the Library store inside the main branch where, along with the usual fiction, mysteries, romance books, and nonfiction selections they have a very nice collection of books by local authors and the local university press.

I ended up hauling home a stack of books:



Remembrance of Things Paris: Sixty Years of Writing from Gourmet, edited by Ruth Reichl (this looks great and is perfect for the Foodies Reading Challenge)



Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot, illustrated by Edward Gorey (these are the poems that inspired the musical Cats)



Adam and Eve and Pinch Me by Ruth Rendell (a stand alone mystery from an author I just started reading)



American Places by Wallace Stegner with photographs by Elliot Porter (a gorgeous coffee table book with text by one of my favorites)



The Ponder Heart by Eudora Welty (Southern and perfect for summer)



The Cocktail Party by T. S. Eliot (something more serious than cats)



Death in Ecstasy by Ngaio Marsh (she is another new favorite of mine)



Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett (I hated Waiting for Godot, so don't know why I think I can read his novels, but it is on the Observer's Top 100 list)



Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney (I already listened to this, which I highly recommend, but wanted the book because Heany's Introduction is worth re-reading)

Review: The Spectator Bird

No one can strip a marriage down to find the twinging nerve like Wallace Stegner, but he does it with such a deft and gentle touch that it is beautiful to observe. In the case of The Spectator Bird, which won the 1977 National Book Award, Stegner combined his marital vivisection with an elaborate backstory about a family of faded Danish aristocrats trying to live down their scandalous past.

Joe Allston, a retired literary agent, feels he has gone through his life as a spectator, falling into his career, his marriage, friendships, and fatherhood without much conscious effort on his part. But Joe and his wife Ruth have lived with a pebble in the shoe of their marriage for twenty years, ever since an extended trip to Denmark following the death of their son. When an unexpected postcard from their Danish friend startles Joe out of his grouchy retirement funk, Ruth uses the opportunity to finally learn what happened all those years ago. For the first time, Joe is forced into an active, thinking role in his long-enduring marriage.

Stegner uses Joe's journal from their Denmark trip to move back and forth between the Allstons' current life as affluent retirees on the stormy California coast south of San Francisco and the remarkably gothic story of the Danish aristocrats with whom they became entangled. In between late night sessions of Joe reading the journal to Ruth, they deal with the disruptions of daily life – bad news about a neighbor, storm damage, and an unexpected visit from one of Joe's eccentric former clients.

Combining Stegner's elegant composition with a terrific plot, curmudgeonly humor, and spot-on set pieces about growing old, sex in contemporary fiction, and the "homeland" myths of second-generation immigrants, The Spectator Bird is the rare page-turner that lingers.

OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of this or any other Wallace Stegner book listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it. 

NOTES 

The Spectator Bird is my favorite read of the year so far and I can't see anything replacing it.  It may make my all-time Top 10 list if I can think of what to bump off it.  It is an incredible, wonderful, entertaining novel.

It also counts as one of my two National winners for the 2012 Battle of the Prizes, American Version.  There is still time to sign up for this challenge, which involves reading only three or four books.  Click the link above or the badge below for details.