Christchurch City Libraries lists literary prize winners and links to catalogue searches, but we may not hold copies of all titles mentioned.
The Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction was established in 2012 to recognise the best nonfiction books for adult readers published in the United States during the previous year.
The winning author receives a $5,000 cash award, and two finalists receive $1,500.
See the other Andrew Carnegie Medal category winners and all the other literary prize winners we list.
2024
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We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America Roxanna Asgarian Winner
- The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration Jake Bittle
- The Talk Darrin Bell
2023
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An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us Ed Yong Winner
- Constructing a Nervous System Margo Jefferson
- Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage Rachel E. Gross
2022
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A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance Hanif Abdurraqib Winner
- Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619–2019 Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain
- Seek You: A Journey through American Loneliness Kristen Radtke
2021
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Fathoms: The World in the Whale Rebecca Giggs Winner
- Just Us: An American Conversation Claudia Rankine
- Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir Natasha Trethewey
2020
- Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster Adam Higginbotham Winner
- Figuring Maria Popova
- The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present David Treuer
2019
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Heavy: An American Memoir Kiese Laymon Winner
- The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border Francisco Cantú
- Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America Beth Macy
2018
- You Don't Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir Sherman Alexie Winner
- The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner Daniel Ellsberg
- Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI David Grann
2017
- Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City Matthew Desmond Winner
- The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice Patricia Bell-Scott
- Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America Patrick Phillips
2016
- H is for Hawk Helen Macdonald
- Hold still: A memoir with photographs Sally Mann Winner
- The invention of nature: Alexander von Humboldt's new world Andrea Wulf
2015
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Just mercy: a story of justice and redemption Bryan Stevenson Winner
- The sixth extinction: an unnatural history Elizabeth Kolbert
- Thirteen days in September: Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David Lawrence Wright
2014
- The bully pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the golden age of journalism Doris Kearns Goodwin Winner
- On paper: the everything of its two-thousand-year history Nicholas A. Basbanes
- Five days at Memorial: life and death in a storm-ravaged hospital Sheri Fink
2013
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Short nights of the shadow catcher: the epic life and immortal photographs of Edward Curtis Timothy Egan Winner
- The mansion of happiness: a history of life and death Jill Lepore
- Spillover: animal infections and the next human pandemic David Quammen
2012
- Catherine the Great: portrait of a woman Robert K. Massie Winner
- The information: a history, a theory, a flood James Gleick
- Malcolm X: a life of reinvention Manning Marable
