"[1] Awards are presented annually to books published in the U.S. during the preceding calendar year in six categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Memoir/Autobiography, Biography, and Criticism.
They do consider "translations, short story and essay collections, self published books, and any titles that fall under the general categories.
"[2] The judges are the volunteer directors of the NBCC who are 24 members serving rotating three-year terms, with eight elected annually by the voting members, namely "professional book review editors and book reviewers.
[2] Francine du Plessix Gray Them: A Memoir of Parents Daniel Mendelsohn The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million Winner Edwidge Danticat Brother, I'm Dying Winner Joshua Clark Heart Like Water: Surviving Katrina and Life in Its Disaster Zone Finalist Anna Politkovskaya Russian Diary: A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption and Death in Putin's Russia Joyce Carol Oates The Journals of Joyce Carol Oates, 1973–1982 Sara Paretsky Writing in an Age of Silence Ariel Sabar My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq Winner Honor Moore The Bishop's Daughter Finalist Andrew X. Pham The Eaves of Heaven Helene Cooper The House on Sugar Beach Rick Bass Why I Came West Diana Athill Somewhere Towards the End Winner Edmund White City Boy Finalist Kati Marton Enemies of the People: My Family's Journey to America Mary Karr Lit Debra Gwartney Live Through This: A Mother's Memoir of Runaway Daughters and Reclaimed Love Darin Strauss Half a Life Winner Kai Bird Crossing Mandelbaum Gate Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978 Finalist Rahna Reiko Rizzuto Hiroshima in the Morning Christopher Hitchens Hitch-22: A Memoir Patti Smith Just Kids David Dow The Autobiography of an Execution Mira Bartók The Memory Palace Winner Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts Harlem is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America Finalist Luis J. Rodriguez It Calls You Back: An Odyssey through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing Diane Ackerman One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing Deb Olin Unferth Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War Leanne Shapton Swimming Studies Winner Anthony Shadid House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East Finalist Ngugi wa Thiong’o In the House of the Interpreter Maureen N. McLane My Poets Reyna Grande The Distance Between Us Amy Wilentz Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter From Haiti Winner Jesmyn Ward Men We Reaped Finalist Aleksandar Hemon The Book of My Lives Rebecca Solnit The Faraway Nearby Sonali Deraniyagala Wave Roz Chast Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?
Winner Gary Shteyngart Little Failure Finalist Lacy M. Johnson The Other Side Blake Bailey The Splendid Things We Planned: A Family Portrait Meline Toumani There Was and There Was Not Margo Jefferson Negroland: A Memoir Winner George Hodgman Bettyville Finalist Helen Macdonald H is for Hawk Elizabeth Alexander The Light of the World Vivian Gornick The Odd Woman and the City Hope Jahren Lab Girl Winner Jenny Diski In Gratitude Finalist Marion Coutts The Iceberg Hisham Matar The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between Kao Kalia Yang The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father Xiaolu Guo Nine Continents: A Memoir In and Out of China Winner Henry Marsh Admissions: Life as a Brain Surgeon Finalist Roxane Gay Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body Thi Bui The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir Ludmilla Petrushevskaya The Girl From the Metropol Hotel: Growing Up in Communist Russia Nora Krug Belonging: A German Reckons With History and Home Winner Nicole Chung All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir Finalist Tara Westover Educated: A Memoir Nell Painter Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over Richard Beard The Day That Went Missing: A Family's Story Rigoberto Gonzalez What Drowns the Flowers in Your Mouth: A Memoir of Brotherhood Chanel Miller Know My Name: A Memoir Winner Ronan Farrow Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators Finalist Laura Cumming Five Days Gone: The Mystery of My Mother's Disappearance as a Child Mira Jacob Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman Sounds Like Titanic: A Memoir Cathy Park Hong Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning Winner Riva Lehrer Golem Girl Finalist Alia Volz Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco Wayétu Moore The Dragons, The Giant, The Women Shayla Lawson This Is Major: Notes on Diana Ross, Dark Girls, and Being Dope Jeremy Atherton Lin Gay Bar: Why We Went Out Winner Rodrigo Garcia A Farewell To Gabo And Mercedes: A Son's Memoir of Gabriel García Márquez and Mercedes Barcha Finalist Doireann Ní Ghríofa A Ghost in the Throat Hanif Abdurraqib A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance Albert Samaha Concepcion: An Immigrant Family's Fortunes Hua Hsu Stay True: A Memoir Winner Jazmina Barrera Linea Nigra: An Essay on Pregnancy and Earthquakes Finalist Dorthe Nors A Line in the World: A Year on the North Sea Coast Darryl Pinckney Come Back in September: A Literary Education on West Sixty-Seventh Street, Manhattan Ingrid Rojas Contreras The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir Safiya Sinclair How to Say Babylon: A Memoir Winner Susan Kiyo Ito I Would Meet You Anywhere: A Memoir Finalist David Mas Masumoto Secret Harvests: A Hidden Story of Separation and the Resilience of a Family Farm Ahmed Naji Rotten Evidence: Reading and Writing in an Egyptian Prison Matthew Zapruder Story of a Poem: A Memoir