National Book Critics Circle Award – Non-Fiction

Christchurch City Libraries lists literary prize winners and links to catalogue searches, but we may not hold copies of all titles mentioned.

The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC), founded in 1974, consists of nearly 600 active book critics, authors, literary bloggers, book publishing personnel, and student members. The NBCC Awards honour the best literature published in the United States in a number of categories.

See the other National Book Critics Circle Awards category winners and all the other literary prize winners we list.

2023 

• We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America Roxanna Asgarian Winner
• Bottoms up and the Devil Laughs Kerry Howley
• Who Gets Believed? When the Truth Isn’t Enough Dina Nayeri
• The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War Jeff Sharlet
• Ordinary Notes Christina Sharpe

 

2022

• The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act Isaac Butler Winner
• Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands Kelly Lytle Hernández
• Virology: Essays for the Living, the Dead, and the Small Things in Between Joseph Osmundson
• Fen, Bog, & Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis Annie Proulx
• An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us Ed Yong

2021

• How the Word Is Passed Clint Smith Winner
• Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty Patrick Radden Keefe
• The Family Roe: An American Story Joshua Prager
• The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth Sam Quinones
• Orwell's Roses Rebecca Solnit

2020

• Island on Fire: The Revolt That Ended Slavery in the British Empire Tom Zoellner Winner
• The Broken Heart of America: St, Louis and the Violent History of the United States Walter Johnson
• Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future James Shapiro
• She Come By It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs Sarah Smarsh
• Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent Isabel Wilkerson

2019 

• Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe Winner
• Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future by Kate Brown
• The Buried: An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution by Peter Hessler
• Out of the Shadows: Reimagining Gay Men’s Lives by Walt Odets
• No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us by Rachel Louise Snyder

2018

• Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan Steve Coll Winner
• The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border Francisco Cantú
• The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
• We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights Adam Winkler 
• God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State Lawrence Wright

2017 

• The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America Frances FitzGerald Winner
• The Gulf: The Making of An American Sea Jack E. Davis
• The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia Masha Gessen
• Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe Kapka Kassabova
• A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes Adam Rutherford

2016

• Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City Matthew Desmond Winner
• Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America Ibram X. Kendi
• Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right Jane Mayer
• Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War Viet Thanh Nguyen
• Writing to Save a Life: The Louis Till File John Edgar Wideman

2015

• SPQR: A History of Rome Mary Beard
• Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America Ari Berman
• Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America Jill Leovy
• Dreamland: The True Story of America’s Opiate Epidemic Sam Quinones Winner
• What the Eye Hears: A History of Tap Dancing Brian Seibert

2014

• The problem of slavery in the age of Emancipation David Brion Davis Winner
• The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the battle over a forbidden book Peter Finn and Petra Couvee
• The sixth extinction: an unnatural history Elizabeth Kolbert
• Capital in the Twenty-First Century Thomas Piketty
• Deep down dark: the untold stories of 33 men buried in a Chilean mine, and the miracle that set them free Hector Tobar

2013

• Five days at Memorial: life and death in a storm-ravaged hospital Sheri Fink Winner
• Whitey Bulger: America's most wanted gangster and the manhunt that brought him to justice Kevin Cullen and Shelley Murphy
• Thank you for your service David Finkel
• The unwinding: an inner history of the New America George Packer
• Going clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the prison of belief Lawrence Wright

2012

• Far from the tree: parents, children, and the search for identity Andrew Solomon Winner
• Behind the beautiful forevers: life, death, and hope in a Mumbai undercity Katherine Boo
• Private empire: ExxonMobil and American power Steve Coll/li>
• Why does the world exist? An existential detective story Jim Holt
• Spillover: animal infections and the next human pandemic David Quammen

2011

• Liberty's exiles: American loyalists in the Revolutionary War Maya Jasanoff

2010

• The warmth of other suns: the epic story of America's great migration Isabel Wilkerson

2009

• The age of wonder: how the Romantic generation discovered the beauty and terror of science Richard Holmes

2008

• The forever war Dexter Filkins

2007

• Medical apartheid: the dark history of medical experimentation on Black Americans from colonial times to the present Harriet Washington

2006

• Rough crossings: Britain, the slaves and the American Revolution Simon Schama

2005

• Voices from Chernobyl: the oral history of a nuclear disaster Svetlana Alexievich

2004

• The Reformation: a history Diarmaid MacCulloch

2003

• Sons of Mississippi Paul Hendrickson

2002

• "A problem from hell": America and the age of genocide Samantha Power

2001

• Double fold: libraries and the assault on paper Nicholson Baker

2000

• Newjack: guarding Sing Sing Ted Conover

1999

• Time, love, memory: a great biologist and his quest for the origins of behavior Jonathan Weiner

1998

• We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families: stories from Rwanda Philip Gourevitch

1997

• The spirit catches you and you fall down Anne Fadiman

1996

• Bad land Jonathan Raban

1995

• A civil action Jonathan Harr

1994

• The rape of Europa: the fate of Europe's treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War Lynn H. Nicholas

1993

• The land where the blues began Alan Lomax

1992

• Young men and fire Norman Maclean

1991

• Backlash: the undeclared war against American women Susan Faludi

1990

• The content of our character: a new vision of race in America Shelby Steele