National Book Awards
1970 - 1990
1989 |
Fiction | Spartina | John Casey |
| Nonfiction | From Beirut to Jerusalem | Thomas L. Friedman | |
1988 |
Fiction | Paris Trout | Pete Dexter |
| Nonfiction | A Bright Shining Lie | Neil Sheehan | |
1987 |
Fiction | Paco's Story | Larry Heinemann |
| Nonfiction | The Making of the Atom Bomb | Richard Rhodes | |
1986 |
Fiction | World's Fair | E.L. Doctorow |
| Nonfiction | Arctic Dreams | Barry Lopez | |
1985 |
Fiction | White Noise | Don DeLillo |
| First work of fiction | Easy in the Islands | Bob Shacochis | |
| Nonfiction | Common Ground | J. Anthony Lukas | |
1984 |
Fiction | Victory Over Japan | Ellen Gilchrist |
| First work of fiction | Stones for Ibarra | Harriet Doerr | |
| Nonfiction | Andrew Jackson & the Course of American Democracy | Robert Remini | |
1983 |
Autobiography/biography (hardcover) | Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller | Judith Thurman |
| Autobiography/biography (paperback) | Nathaniel Hawthorne in His Time | James Mellow | |
| Children's Books, nonfiction | Chimney Sweeps | James Cross Giblin | |
| Children's Fiction (hardcover) | Homesick: My Own Story | Jean Fritz | |
| Children's Fiction (paperback) | A Place Apart | Paula Fox | |
| Children's Fiction (paperback) | Marked by Fire | Joyce Carole Thomas | |
| Children's Picture Books (hardcover) | Miss Rumphius | Barbara Cooney | |
| Children's Picture Books (hardcover) | Doctor DeSoto | William Steig | |
| Children's Picture Books (paperback) | A House is a House for Me | Mary Ann Hoberman, Betty Fraser | |
| Fiction (hardcover) | The Color Purple | Alice Walker | |
| Fiction (paperback) | Collected Stories of Eudora Welty | Eudora Welty | |
| First novel | The Women of Brewster Place | Gloria Naylor | |
| General nonfiction (hardcover) | China: Alive in the Bitter Sea | Fox Butterfield | |
| General nonfiction (paperback) | National Defense | James Fallows | |
| History (hardcover) | Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin and the Great Depression | Alan Brinkley | |
| History (paperback) | Utopian Thought in the Western World | Frank Manuel & Fritzie Manuel | |
| Original paperback | The Red Magician | Lisa Goldstein | |
| Poetry | Selected Poems | Galway Kinnell | |
| Poetry | Country Music: Selected Early Poems | Charles Wright | |
| Science (hardcover) | Subtle is the Lord | Abraham Pais | |
| Science (paperback) | The Mathematical Experience | Philip Davis & Reuben Hersh | |
1982 |
Autobiography/biography (hardcover) | Mornings on Horseback | David McCullough |
| Autobiography/biography (paperback) | Walter Lippmann and the American Century | Ronald Steel | |
| Children's Book, fiction (paperback) | Words by Heart | Ouida Sebestyen | |
| Children's Book, nonfiction (hardcover) | A Penguin Year | Susan Bonners | |
| Children's Books, fiction (hardcover) | Westmark | Lloyd Alexander | |
| Children's Books, picture books (hardcover) | Outside Over There | Maurice Sendak | |
| Children's Books, picture books (paperback) | Noah's Ark | Peter Spier | |
| Fiction (hardcover) | Rabbit is Rich | John Updike | |
| Fiction (paperback) | So Long, See You Tomorrow | William Maxwell | |
| First novel | Dale Loves Sophie to Death | Robb Forman Dew | |
| General nonfiction (hardcover) | The Soul of a New Machine | Tracy Kidder | |
| General nonfiction (paperback) | Naming Names | Victor Navasky | |
| History (hardcover) | People of the Sacred Mountain | Father Peter John Powell | |
| History (paperback) | The Generation of 1914 | Robert Wohl | |
| Poetry | Life Supports | William Bronk | |
| Science (hardcover) | Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind | Donald Johanson & Maitland Edey | |
| Science (paperback) | Taking the Quantum Leap | Fred Alan Wolf | |
1981 |
Autobiography/biography (hardcover) | Walt Whitman | Justin Kaplan |
| Autobiography/biography (paperback) | Samuel Beckett | Deirdre Bair | |
| Children's Book, fiction (hardcover) | The Night Swimmers | Betsy Byars | |
| Children's Book, fiction (paperback) | Ramona and Her Mother | Beverly Cleary | |
| Children's Book, nonfiction (hardcover) | Mali! Oh Boy--Babies! | Alison Cragin Herzig & Jane Lawrence | |
| Fiction (hardcover) | Plains Song | Wright Morris | |
| Fiction (paperback) | The Stories of John Cheever | John Cheever | |
| First novel | Sister Wolf | Ann Arensberg | |
| General fiction (hardcover) | China Men | Maxine Hong Kingston | |
| General fiction (paperback) | The Last Cowboy | Jane Kramer | |
| History (hardcover) | Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality | John Boswell | |
| History (paperback) | Been in the Storm So Long | Leon Litwak | |
| Poetry | The Need to Hold Still | Lisel Mueller | |
| Science (hardcover) | The Panda's Thumb | Stephen Jay Gould | |
| Science (paperback) | The Medusa and the Snail | Lewis Thomas | |
1980 |
Autobiography (hardcover) | Lauren Bacall by Myself | Lauren Bacall |
| Autobiography (paperback) | And I Worked at the Writer's Trade | Malcolm Cowley | |
| Biography (hardcover) | The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt | Edmund Morris | |
| Biography (paperback) | Max Perkins | A. Scott Berg | |
| Children's Books (hardcover) | A Gathering of Days | Joan Blos | |
| Children's Books (paperback) | A Swiftly Tilting Planet | Madeleine L'Engle | |
| Current interest (hardcover) | Julia Child and More Company | Julia Child | |
| Current interest (paperback) | The Culture of Narcissism | Christopher Lasch | |
| Fiction (hardcover) | Sophie's Choice | William Styron | |
| Fiction (paperback) | The World According to Garp | John Irving | |
| First novel | Birdy | William Wharton | |
| General nonfiction (hardcover) | The Right Stuff | Tom Wolfe | |
| General nonfiction (paperback) | The Snow Leopard | Peter Mattiessen | |
| General reference books (hardcover) | The Complete Directory | Elder Witt | |
| General reference books (paperback) | The Complete Directory of Prime Time Network TV Shows | Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh | |
| History (hardcover) | The White House | Henry Kissinger | |
| History (paperback) | A Distant Mirror | Barbara Tuchman | |
| Mystery (hardcover) | The Green Ripper | John MacDonald | |
| Poetry | Ashes | Philip Levine | |
| Religion/inspiration (hardcover) | The Gnostic Gospels | Elaine Pagels | |
| Religion/inspiration (paperback) | A Severe Mercy | Sheldon Vanauken | |
| Science (hardcover) | Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid | Douglas Hofstadter | |
| Science (paperback) | The Dancing Wu Li Masters | Gary Zukav | |
| Science fiction (hardcover) | Jem | Frederik Pohl | |
| Science fiction (paperback) | The Book of the Dun Cow | Walter Wangerin, Jr. | |
| Western | Bendigo Shafter | Louis L'Amour | |
1979 |
Biography and Autobiography | Robert Kennedy and His Times | Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. |
| Children's Literature | The Great Gilly Hopkins | Katherine Paterson | |
| Contemporary Thought | The Snow Leopard | Peter Mattiessen | |
| Fiction | Going After Cacciato | Tim O'Brien | |
| History | Intellectual Life in the Colonial South | Richard Beale Davis | |
| Poetry | Mirabell: Book of Numbers | James Merrill | |
1978 |
Biography and Autobiography | Samuel Johnson | W. Jackson Bate |
| Children's Literature | The View from the Oak | Judith Kohl and Herbert Kohl | |
| Contemporary Thought | Winners and Losers | Gloria Emerson | |
| Fiction | Blood Ties | Mary Lee Settle | |
| History | The Path Between the Seas | David McCullough | |
| Poetry | The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov | Howard Nemerov | |
1977 |
Biography and Autobiography | Norman Thomas: The Last Idealist | W.A. Swanberg |
| Children's Literature | The Master Puppeteer | Katherine Paterson | |
| Contemporary Thought | The Uses of Enchantment | Bruno Bettelheim | |
| Fiction | The Spectator Bird | Wallace Stegner | |
| History | World of our Fathers | Irving Howe | |
| Poetry | Collected Poems | Richard Eberhart | |
1976 |
Arts and Letters (nonfiction) | The Great War and Modern Memory | Paul Fussell |
| Children's books | Bert Breen's Barn | Walter Edmonds | |
| Contemporary Affairs | Passage to Ararat | Michael Arlen | |
| Fiction | Jr | William Gaddis | |
| History and biography | The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution | David Brion Davis | |
| Poetry | Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror | John Ashbery | |
1975 |
Arts and Letters (nonfiction) | Marcel Proust | Roger Shattuck |
| Arts and Letters (nonfiction) | The Lives of a Cell | Lewis Thomas | |
| Biography | The Life of Emily Dickinson | Richard Sewall | |
| Children's books | M.C. Higgins the Great | Virginia Hamilton | |
| Contemporary Affairs | All God's Dangers | Theodore Rosengarten | |
| Fiction | Dog Soldiers | Robert Stone | |
| Fiction | The Hair of Harold Roux | Thomas Williams | |
| History | The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson | Bernard Bailyn | |
| Philosophy and Religion | Anarchy, State, and Utopia | Robert Nozick | |
| Poetry | Presentation Piece | Marilyn Hacker | |
| The Sciences | Interpretation of Schizophrenia | Silvano Arieti | |
| The Sciences | The Lives of a Cell | Lewis Thomas | |
1974 |
Arts and Letters (nonfiction) | Deeper into the Movies | Pauline Kael |
| Biography | MacCauley | John Clive | |
| Biography | Malcolm Lowry | Douglas Day | |
| Children's books | The Court of the Stone Children | Eleanor Cameron | |
| Contemporary Affairs | The Briar Patch | Murray Kempton | |
| Fiction | Gravity's Rainbow | Thomas Pynchon | |
| Fiction | A Crown of Feathers | Isaac Bashevis Singer | |
| History | The Shaping of the Historian | John Clive | |
| Philosophy and Religion | Edmund Husserl | Maurice Natanson | |
| Poetry | The Fall of America | Allen Ginsberg | |
| Poetry | Diving Into the Wreck | Adrienne Rich | |
| The Sciences | Life: The Unfinished Experiment | S.E. Luria | |
1973 |
Arts and Letters (nonfiction) | Diderot | Arthur Wilson |
| Biography | George Washington | James Thomas Flexner | |
| Children's books | The Farthest Shore | Ursula K. LeGuin | |
| Contemporary Affairs | Fire in the Lake | Frances FitzGerald | |
| Fiction | Chimera | John Barth | |
| History | Judenrat | Isaiah Trunk | |
| History | The Children of Pride Isaiah Trunk | Robert Manson Myers | |
| Philosophy and Religion | A Religious History of the American People | S.E. Ahlstrom | |
| Poetry | Collected Poems | A.R. Ammons | |
| The Sciences | The Serengeti Lion | George Schaller | |
1972 |
Arts and Letters (nonfiction) | The Classical Style | Charles Rosen |
| Biography | Eleanor and Franklin | Joseph Lash | |
| Children's books | The Slightly Irregular Fire Engine | Donald Barthelme | |
| Contemporary Affairs | The Last Whole Earth Catalogue | Stewart Brand | |
| Fiction | The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor | Flannery O'Connor | |
| History | Ordeal of the Union | Allan Nevins | |
| Philosophy and Religion | Righteous Empire | Martin Marty | |
| Poetry | Selected Poems | Howard Moss | |
| Poetry | The Collected Works of Frank O'Hara | Frank O'Hara | |
| The Sciences | The Blue Whale | George Small | |
1971 |
Arts and Letters (nonfiction) | Cocteau | Francis Steegmuller |
| Children's Literature | The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian | Lloyd Alexander | |
| Fiction | Mr. Sammler's Planet | Saul Bellow | |
| History and biography | Roosevelt: A Soldier of Freedom | James McGregor Burns | |
| Poetry | To See, To Take | Mona Van Duyn | |
| The Sciences | Science in the British Colonies of America | Raymond Phineas Stern | |
1970 |
Fiction | Them | Joyce Carol Oates |
| Children's Literature | A Day of Pleasure | Isaac Bashevis Singer | |
| Arts and Letters (nonfiction) | An Unfinished Woman | Lillian Hellman | |
| History and biography | Huey Long | T. Harry Williams | |
| Philosophy and Religion | Gandhi's Truth | Erik Erikson | |
| Poetry | The Complete Poems | Elizabeth Bishop |
