2008

 Fiction: Roberto Bolaño 2666
General Nonfiction: Dexter Filkins The Forever War
Memoir/Autobiography: 2007
Biography: Patrick French The World is What it is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul
Poetry: Juan Felipe Herrera Half the World in Light and
             August Kleinzahler Sleeping it Off in Rapid City
Criticism: Seth Lerer Children’s Literature: A Readers’ History: Reader’s History from Aesop to Harry Potter

2007

 Fiction: Junot Diaz The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
General Nonfiction: Harriet A. Washington Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans From Colonial Times to the Present
Memoir/Autobiography: Edwidge Danticat Brother, I'm Dying
Biography: Tim Jeal Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer
Poetry: Mary Jo Bang Elegy
Criticism: Alex Ross The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century

2006

 Fiction: Kiran Desai The Inheritance of Loss
General Nonfiction: Simon Schama Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution
Memoir/Autobiography: Daniel Mendelsohn The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million
Biography: Julie Phillips James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon
Poetry: Troy Jollimore Tom Thomson in Purgatory
Criticism: Lawrence Weschler Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences

2005

 Fiction: E.L. Doctorow The March
General Nonfiction: Svetlana Alexievich Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster
Memoir/Autobiography: Francine du Plessix Gray Them: A Memoir of Parents
Biography: Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
Poetry: Jack Gilbert Refusing Heaven
Criticism: William Logan The Undiscovered Country: Poetry in the Age of Tin

2004

 Fiction: Marilynne Robinson Gilead
General Nonfiction: Diarmaid MacCulloch The Reformation: A History
Biography/Autobiography: Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan De Kooning: An American Master
Poetry: Adrienne Rich The School Among the Ruins
Criticism: Patrick Neate Where You're At: Notes From the Frontline of a Hip-Hop Planet

2003

 Fiction: Edward P. Jones The Known World
General Nonfiction: Paul Hendrickson Sons of Mississippi
Biography/Autobiography: William Taubman Khrushchev: The Man and His Era
Poetry: Susan Stewart Columbarium
Criticism: Rebecca Solnit River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West

2002

 Fiction: Ian McEwan Atonement
General Nonfiction: Samantha Power A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide
Biography/Autobiography: Janet Browne Charles Darwin: The Power of Place, Vol. II
Poetry: B.H. Fairchild Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest
Criticism: William H. Gass Tests of Time

2001

 Fiction: Austerlitz, W.G. Sebald
General Nonfiction: Double Ford: Libraries and the Assault on Paper, Nicholson Baker
Biography/Autobiography: Boswell's Presumptuous Task: The Making of the Life of Dr. Johnson, Adam Sisman
Poetry: Saving Lives, Albert Goldbarth
Criticism: The War Against Cliché: Essays and Reviews, 1971-2000, Martin Amis

 2000

Fiction: Being Dead, Jim Crace
General Nonfiction: Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing, Ted Conover
Biography/Autobiography: Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, Herbert P. Bix
Poetry: Carolina Ghost Woods, Judy Jordan
Criticism: Quarrel & Quandary, Cynthia Ozick

 1999

Fiction: Motherless Brooklyn, Jonathan Lethem
General Nonfiction: Time, Love, Memory: A Great Biologist and His Quest for the Origins of Behavior, Jonathan Weiner
Biography/Autobiography: The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White, Henry Wiencek
Poetry: Ordinary Works, Ruth Stone
Criticism: Selected Non-Fictions, Jorge Louis Borges

 1998

Fiction: The Love of a Good Woman, Alice Munro
General Nonfiction: We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda, Philip Gourevitch
Biography/Autobiography: A Beautiful Mind, Sylvia Nasar
Poetry:The Bird Catcher, Marie Ponsot
Criticism:Visions of Jazz: The First Century, Gary Giddons

 1997

Fiction: The Blue Flower, Penelope Fitzgerald
General Nonfiction: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman
Biography/Autobiography: Ernie Pyle's War, James E. Tobin
Poetry: Black Zodiac, Charles Wright
Criticism: Making Waves, Mario Vargas Llosa

 1996

Fiction: Women in Their Beds, Gina Berriault
General Nonfiction: Bad Land, Jonathan Raban
Biography/Autobiography: Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt
Poetry: Sun Under Wood, Robert Hass
Criticism: Finding a Form, William Gass

 1995

Fiction: Mrs. Ted Bliss, Stanley Elkin
General Nonfiction: A Civil Action, Jonathon Harr
Biography/Autobiography: Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson, Robert Polito
Poetry: Time and Money, William Matthews
Criticism: The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France, Robert Darnton

 1994

Fiction: The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields
General Nonfiction: The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War, Lynn H. Nicholas
Biography/Autobiography: Shot in the Heart, Mikal Gilmore
Poetry: Rider, Mark Rudman
Criticism: The Culture of Bruising: Essays on Prizefighting, Literature and Modern American Culture, Gerald Early

 1993

Fiction: A Lesson Before Dying, Ernest J. Gaines
General Nonfiction: The Land Where the Blues Began, Alan Lomax
Biography/Autobiography: Genet, Edmund White
Poetry: My Alexandria, Mark Doty
Criticism: Opera in America: A Cultural History, John Dizikes

 1992

Fiction: All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy
General Nonfiction: Young Men and Fire, Norman Maclean
Biography/Autobiography: Writing Dangerously: Mary McCarthy and Her World, Carol Brightman
Poetry: Collected Shorter Poems 1946-1991, Hayden Carruth
Criticism: Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America, Garry Wills

 1991

Fiction: A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley
General Nonfiction: Backlash: The Undeclared War Against America Women, Susan Faludi
Biography/Autobiography: Patrimony: A True Story, Philip Roth
Poetry: Heaven and Earth: A Cosmology, Albert Goldbarth
Criticism: Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory, Lawrence L. Langer

 1990

Fiction: Rabbit at Rest, John Updike
General Nonfiction: The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America, Shelby Steele
Biography/Autobiography: Means of Ascent: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. II, Robert A. Caro
Poetry: Bitter Angel, Amy Gerstler
Criticism: Encounters and Reflections: Art in the Historical Present, Arthur C. Danto

 1989

Fiction: Billy Bathgate, E.L. Doctorow
General Nonfiction: The Broken Cord, Michael Dorris
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, John Clive

 1988

Fiction: The Middleman and Other Stories, Bharati Mukherjee
General Nonfiction: Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63, Taylor Branch
Biography/Autobiography: Oscar Wilde, Richard Ellman
Poetry: That One Day, Donald Hall
Criticism: Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author, Clifford Geertz

 1987

Fiction: The Counterlife, Philip Roth
General Nonfiction: The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Richard Rhodes
Biography/Autobiography: Chaucer: His Life, His Works, His World, Donald R. Howard
Poetry: Flesh and Blood, C.K. Williams
Criticism: Dance Writings, Edwin Denby, edited by Robert Cornfield and William MacKay

 1986

Fiction: Kate Vaiden, Reynolds Price
General Nonfiction: War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War, John W. Dower
Biography/Autobiography: Tombee: Portrait of a Cotton Planter, Theodore Rosengarten
Poetry: Wild Gratitude, Edward Hirsch
Criticism: Less Than One: Selected Essays, Joseph Brodsky

 1985

Fiction: The Accidental Tourist, Anne Tyler
General Nonfiction: Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families, J. Anthony Lukas
Biography/Autobiography: Henry James: A Life, Leon Edel
Poetry: The Triumph of Achilles, Louise Gluck
Criticism: Habitations of the Word: Essays, William H. Gass

 1984

Fiction: Love Medicine, Louise Erdrich
General Nonfiction: Weapons and Hope, Freeman Dyson
Biography/Autobiography: Dostoevsky: The Years of Ordeal, 1850-1859, Joseph Frank
Poetry: The Dead and the Living, Sharon Olds
Criticism: Twentieth Century Pleasures: Prose on Poetry, Robert Hass

 1983

Fiction: Ironweed, William Kennedy
General Nonfiction: The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House, Seymour M. Hersch
Biography/Autobiography: Minor Characters, Joyce Johnson
Poetry: The Changing Light at Sandover, James Merrill
Criticism: Hugging the Shore: Essays and Criticism, John Updike

 1982

Fiction: George Mills, Stanley Elkin
General Nonfiction: The Path of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Robert Caro
Poetry: Antarctic Traveler, Katha Pollitt
Criticism: The Second American Revolution and Other Essays, Gore Vidal

 1981

Fiction: Rabbit Is Rich, John Updike
General Nonfiction: The Mismeasure of Man, Stephen Jay Gould
Poetry: A Coast of Trees, A.R. Ammons
Criticism: A Virgil Thomson Reader, Virgil Thomson

1980

Fiction: Shirley Hazzard The Transit Of Venus
General Nonfiction: Ronald Steel Walter Lippmann and the American Century
Criticism: Helen Vendler Part of Nature, Part of Us: Modern American Poets
Poetry: Frederick Seidel Sunrise

1979

Fiction: Thomas Flanagan The Year of the French
General Nonfiction: Telford Taylor Munich: The Price of Peace
Criticism: Elaine Pagels The Gnostic Gospels
Poetry: Philip Levine  Ashes: Poems New and Old and 7 Years From Somewhere

1978

Fiction: John Cheever The Stories of John Cheever
General Nonfiction: Maureen Howard Facts of Life
Criticism: Meyer Schapiro Modern Art: 19th and 20th Centuries (Selected Papers, Volume 2)
Poetry: L. E. Sissman Hello, Darkness: The Collected Poems of L. E. Sissman

1977

Fiction: Toni Morrison Song Of Solomon
General Nonfiction: Walter Jackson Bate Samuel Johnson
Criticism: Susan Sontag On Photography
Poetry: Robert Lowell Day by Day

1976

Fiction: John Gardner October Light
General Nonfiction: Maxine Hong Kingston The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts
Criticism: Bruno Bettelheim The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance and Importance of Fairy Tales
Poetry: Elizabeth Bishop Geography III

1975

Fiction: E.L. Doctorow Ragtime
General Nonfiction: R. W. B. Lewis Edith Wharton: A Biography
Criticism: Paul Fussell The Great War and Modern Memory
Poetry: John Ashberry Self-Portrait in A Convex Mirror