• Brick Lane, by Monica Ali
• A Distant Shore, by Caryl Phillips
• The Time of Our Singing, by Richard Powers
• Old School, by Tobias Wolff

• The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty, by Caroline Alexander
• Gulag: A History, by Anne Applebaum
• Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble and Coming of Age in the Bronx, by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
• Rising Up and Rising Down, by William T. Vollmann

• A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates, by Blake Bailey
• The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage, by Paul Elie
• Jonathan Edwards, by George Marsden
• Lucia Joyce: To Dance in the Wake, by Carol Loeb Shloss

• Blue Hour, by Carolyn Forche
• What Narcissism Means To Me, by Tony Hoagland
• She Says, by Venus Khoury-Ghata
• Granted, by Mary Szybist

• Gritos, by Dagoberto Gilb
• Songbook, by Nick Hornby
• Michelangelo & the Pope’s Ceiling, by Ross King
• Regarding the Pain of Others, by Susan Sontag

• Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides
• Nowhere Man, by Alexander Hemon, 
• Roscoe, by William Kennedy
• The Darts of Cupid and Other Stories, by Edith Templeton

• War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, by Chris Hedges
• American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center, by William Langewiesche
• Brown: The Last Discovery of America, by Richard Rodriguez
• Edison’s Eve: A Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life, by Gaby Wood

• Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, by Robert A. Caro
• The Last American Man, by Elizabeth Gilbert
• Benjamin Franklin, by Edmund S. Morgan
• Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? The Carter Family and Their Legacy in American Music, by Mark Zwonitzer with Charles Hirshberg

• Leaving Saturn, by Major Jackson
• Sleeping with the Dictionary, by Harryette Mullen
• The Unswept Room, by Sharon Olds
• Without End: New and Selected Poems, by Adam Zagajewski

• Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color, by Philip Ball
• Old Man Goya, by Julia Blackburn
• Reviewery, by Christopher Ricks
• Piano Notes: The World of the Pianist, by Charles Rosen

Fiction:
Winner:  Austerlitz, by W.G. Sebald
Nominees:

• The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen
• Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories, by Alice Munro
• Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett
• John Henry Days, by Colson Whitehead

• The Lost Children of Wilder: The Epic Struggle to Change Foster Care, by Nina Bernstein
• Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland, by Jan T. Gross
• Seabiscuit: An American Legend, by Laura Hillenbrand
• The Brother: The Untold Story of Atomic Spy David Greenglass and How He Sent His Sister, Ethel Rosenberg, to the Electric Chair, by Sam Roberts

• Borrowed Finery: A Memoir, by Paula Fox
• Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina and Richard Farina, by David Hajdu
• Milking the Moon: A Southerner's Story of Life on This Planet, by Katherine Clark
• The Scarlet Professor: Newton Arvin: A Literary Life Shattered by Scandal, by Barry Werth

• The Seven Ages, by Louise Gluck
• Animal Soul, by Bob Hicok
• Given Sugar, Given Salt, by Jane Hirshfield
• A Treatise on Poetry, by Czeslaw Milosz

• Marginalia: Readers Writing in Books, by H.J. Jackson
• De/Compositions:101 Good Poems Gone Wrong, by W.D. Snodgrass
• As Eve Said to the Serpent: On Landscape, Gender, and Art, by Rebecca Solnit
• Ill Nature: Rants and Reflections on Humanity and Other Animals, by Joy Williams

Fiction:
Winner:  Being Dead, by Jim Crace
Nominees:

• A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You, by Amy Bloom
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon
• Assorted Fire Events: Stories, by David Means
• White Teeth, by Zadie Smith

• Crucible of War, by Fred Anderson
• Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars, and the End of the Cold War, by Frances Fitzgerald
• Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health, by Laurie Garrett
• The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach, by Alice Kaplan

• The Monk in the Garden: The Lost and Found Genius of Gregor Mendel, by Robin Marantz Henig
• I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1942-1945, by Victor Klemperer
• The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst, by David Nasaw
• Marcel Proust: A Life, by Jean-Yves Tadie

• Men in the Off Hours, by Anne Carson
• The Ledge, by Michael Collier
• Talking Dirty to the Gods, by Yusef Komunyakaa
• Ultima Thule, by Davis McCombs

• From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to Present, by Jacques Barzun
• Passionate Minds: Women Rewriting the World, by Claudia Roth Pierpont
• Critical Entertainments: Music Old and New, by Charles Rosen
• A Poetry of Two Minds, by Sherod Santos

Fiction:
Winner:  Motherless Brooklyn, by Jonathan Lethem
Nominees:

• Midnight Champagne, by A. Manette Ansay
• The Night Inspector, by Frederick Busch
• Disgrace, by J.M. Coetzee
• The Wonders of the Invisible World: Stories, by David Gates

• Five Thousand Days Like This One: An American Family History, by Jane Brox
• Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, by John W. Dower
• I Could Tell You Stories: Sojourns in the Land of Memory, by Patricia Hampl
• The Black Room at Longwood: Napoleon's Exile on Saint Helena, by Jean-Paul Kauffmann

• Coleridge, Volume II: Darker Reflections, by Richard Holmes
• Morgan: American Financier, by Jean Strouse
• Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette, by Judith Thurman
• The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind the New York Times, by Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones

• Diva, by Rafael Campo
• HIV, Mon Amour, by Tory Dent
• On the Bus with Rosa Parks, by Rita Dove
• Dailies and Rushes, by Susan Kinsolving

• Film Follies: The Cinema Out of Order, by Stuart Klawans
• Reputations of the Tongue: On Poets and Poetry, by William Logan
• Lives of the Poets, by Michael Schmidt
• Black Planet: Facing Race During an NBA Season, by David Shields

Fiction:
Winner:  The Love of a Good Woman, by Alice Munro
Nominees:

• Birds of America by Lorrie Moore
• Preston Falls by David Gates
• No Lease On Life by Lynne Tillman
• The Hours by Michael Cunningham

Biography and Autobiography: A Beautiful Mind, by Sylvia Nasar 

Poetry: The Bird Catcher, by Marie Ponsot 

Criticism: Visions of Jazz, by Gary Giddins

Fiction:
Winner:  The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
Nominees:

• Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier
• Underworld, by Don DeLillo 
• American Pastoral, by Philip Roth
• Dreams of My Russian Summers, by Andrei Makine

• Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster, by Jon Krakauer
• The Bible As It Was, by James L. Kugel
• How the Mind Works, by Steven Pinker
• American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence, by Pauline Maier 

• Walking in the Shade: Volume Two of My Autobiography, 1949-1962, by Doris Lessing
• Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life, by J.M. Coetzee
• Virginia Woolf, by Hermione Lee
• American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, by Joseph Ellis

• Loose Sugar, by Brenda Hillman
• Questions for Ecclesiastes, by Mark Jarman
• Does Your House Have Lions, by Sonia Sanchez
• Desire, by Frank Bidart

• The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets, by Helen Vendler
• God and the American Writer, by Alfred Kazin
• The End of the Novel of Love, by Vivian Gornick 
• The Pleasures of the Imagination, by John Brewer 

Fiction:
Winner:  Women in Their Beds, by Gina Berriault
Nominees:

• About Schmidt by Louis Begley
• Dancing After Hours by Andre Dubus 
• The Autobiography of My Mother by Jamaica Kincaid
• From Bondage by Henry Roth

Biography/Autobiography: Angela's Ashes, by Frank McCourt

Poetry: Sun Under Wood, by Robert Hass

Criticism: Finding a Form, by William Gass

Fiction:
Winner:  Mrs. Ted Bliss, by Stanley Elkin
Nominees:

• Moo by Jane Smiley 
• Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers
• Independence Day by Richard Ford
• The Tent of Orange Mist by Paul West

Biography/Autobiography: Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson, by Robert Polito

Poetry: Time and Money, by William Matthews

Criticism: The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France, by Robert Darnton

Fiction:
Winner:  The Stone Diaries, by Carol Shields
Nominees:

• In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
• The Prince of West End Avenue by Alan Isher
• And All Our Wounds Forgotten by Julius Lester
• A Frolic of His Own by William Gaddis

Biography/Autobiography: Shot in the Heart, by Mikal Gilmore

Poetry: Rider, by Mark Rudman

Criticism: The Culture of Bruising: Essays on Prizefighting, Literature and Modern American Culture, by Gerald Early

Fiction:
Winner:  A Lesson Before Dying, by Ernest J. Gaines
Nominees:

• Feather Crowns by Bobbie Ann Mason
• The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
• Vindication by Frances Sherwood
• The Jade Cabinet by Rikki Ducornet

Biography/Autobiography: Genet, by Edmund White

Poetry: My Alexandria, by Mark Doty

Criticism: Opera in America: A Cultural History, by John Dizikes

Fiction:
Winner:  All the Pretty Horses, by Cormac McCarthy
Nominees:

• Outerbridge Reach by Robert Stone
• Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates 
• Let the Dead Bury Their Dead by Randall Kenan
• Clockers by Richard Price

Biography/Autobiography: Writing Dangerously: Mary McCarthy and Her World, by Carol Brightman

Poetry: Collected Shorter Poems 1946-1991, by Hayden Carruth

Criticism: Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America, by Garry Wills

Fiction:
Winner:  A Thousand Acres, by Jane Smiley
Nominees:

• The Gold Bug Variations by Richard Powers
• Wartime Lies by Louis Begley
• Typical American by Gish Jen
• Mating by Norman Rush

Biography/Autobiography: Patrimony: A True Story, by Philip Roth

Poetry: Heaven and Earth: A Cosmology, by Albert Goldbarth

Criticism: Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory, by Lawrence L. Langer

Fiction:
Winner:  Rabbit at Rest, by John Updike
Nominees:

• Middle Passage by Charles Johnson
• Family Portraits by Sue Miller
• Things I Carried by Tim O'Brien
• Collected Stories by Wallace Stegner

Biography/Autobiography: Means of Ascent: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. II, by Robert A. Caro

Poetry: Bitter Angel, by Amy Gerstler

Criticism: Encounters and Reflections: Art in the Historical Present, by Arthur C. Danto

Fiction:
Winner:  Billy Bathgate, by E.L. Doctorow
Nominees:

• Affliction by Russell Banks
• The Jump-Off Creek by Molly Banks
• On the Island by Josephine Jacobsen
• Leaving Brooklyn by Lynne Sharon Schwartz

Biography/Autobiography: A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt, Geoffrey C. Ward

Poetry: Transparent Gestures, Rodney Jones

Criticism: Not by Fact Alone: Essays on the Writing and Reading of History, by John Clive

Fiction: The Middleman and Other Stories, by Bharati Mukherjee
Nominees:

• Libra by Don DeLillo
• Paris Trout by Pete Dexter
• Wheat That Springeth Green by J. F. Powers
• Where I'm Calling From by Raymond Carver

Biography/Autobiography: Oscar Wilde, by Richard Ellman

Poetry: That One Day, by Donald Hall

Criticism: Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author, by Clifford Geertz

Fiction: The Counterlife, by Philip Roth
Nominees:

• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• The Age of Grief by Jane Smiley
• Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
• The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe

Biography/Autobiography: Chaucer: His Life, His Works, His World, by Donald R. Howard

Poetry: Flesh and Blood, by C.K. Williams

Criticism: Dance Writings, by Edwin Denby, edited by Robert Cornfield and William MacKay

Fiction: Kate Vaiden, by Reynolds Price
Nominees:

• A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor
• The Beet Queen by Louise Erdrich
• The Moon Pinnace by Thomas Williams
• Roger's Version by John Updike

Biography/Autobiography: Tombee: Portrait of a Cotton Planter, by Theodore Rosengarten

Poetry: Wild Gratitude, by Edward Hirsch

Criticism: Less Than One: Selected Essays, by Joseph Brodsky

Fiction: The Accidental Tourist, by Anne Tyler
Nominees:

• White Noise by Don DeLillo
• Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance by Richard Powers
• The Old Forest and Other Stories by Peter Taylor 
• Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

Biography/Autobiography: Henry James: A Life, by Leon Edel 

Poetry: The Triumph of Achilles, by Louise Gluck

Criticism: Habitations of the Word: Essays, by William H. Gass

Fiction: Love Medicine, by Louise Erdrich
Nominees:

• Stones for Ibarra by Harriet Doerr
• Family Dancing by David Leavitt
• Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie
• Machine Dreams by Jayne Anne Phillips

Biography/Autobiography: Dostoevsky: The Years of Ordeal, 1850-1859, by Joseph Frank

Poetry: The Dead and the Living, by Sharon Olds

Criticism: Twentieth Century Pleasures: Prose on Poetry, by Robert Hass

Fiction: Ironweed, by William Kennedy
Nominees:

• Cathedral by Raymond Carver
• During the Reign of the Queen of Persia by Joan Chase
• Magnetic Field(s) by Ron Loewinsohn
• The Anatomy Lesson by Philip Roth

Biography/Autobiography: Minor Characters, by Joyce Johnson

Poetry: The Changing Light at Sandover, by James Merrill 

Criticism: Hugging the Shore: Essays and Criticism, by John Updike

Fiction: George Mills, by Stanley Elkin
Nominees:

• Levitation by Cynthia Ozick
• Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
• Shiloh and Other Stories by Bobbie Ann Mason

Poetry: Antarctic Traveler, by Katha Pollitt

Criticism: The Second American Revolution and Other Essays, by Gore Vidal

Fiction: Rabbit Is Rich, by John Updike

General Non-Fiction: The Mismeasure of Man, by Stephen Jay Gould

Poetry: A Coast of Trees, by A.R. Ammons

Criticism: A Virgil Thomson Reader, by Virgil Thomson

Fiction: The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard
Nominees:

• Loon Lake by E. L. Doctorow 
• So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell
• The Second Coming by Walker Percy
• Morgan's Passing by Anne Tyler

Poetry:  Sunrise: Poems, by Frederick Seidel 

Criticism:  Part of Nature, Part of Us: Modern American Poets, by Helen Vendler 

Fiction:  The Year of the French, by Thomas Flanagan

General Non-Fiction:  Munich, by Telford Taylor

Poetry:  Ashes and 7 Years from Somewhere, by Philip Levine 

Criticism:  The Gnostic Gospels, by Elaine Pagels

Fiction:  The Stories of John Cheever, by John Cheever

General Non-Fiction:  Facts of Life, by Maureen Howard 

Poetry:   Hello, Darkness: The Collected Poems of L.E. Sissman, by L.E. Sissman; Peter Davison 

Criticism:   Modern Art, 19th and 20th Centuries, by Meyer Schapiro 

Fiction:  Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison

General Non-Fiction:  Samuel Johnson, by W. Jackson Bate 

Poetry:  Day by Day, by Robert Lowell

Criticism:  On Photography, by Susan Sontag

Fiction:  October Light, by John Gardner 

General Non-Fiction:  The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, by Maxine Hong Kingston 

Poetry:  Geography III, by Elizabeth Bishop

Criticism:  The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, by Bruno Bettelheim 

Fiction:  Ragtime, by E.L. Doctorow

General Non-Fiction:  R.W.B. Lewis, by Edith Wharton

Poetry:  Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, by John Ashbery

Criticism:  The Great War and Modern Memory, by Paul Fussell