- 1996: Victor Martinez – Parrott In the Oven: MiVida
- 1997: Han Nolan – Dancing on the Edge
- 1998: Louis Sachar – Holes
- 1999: Kimberly Willis Holt – When Zachary Beaver Came to Town
- 2000: Gloria Whelan – Homeless Bird
- 2001: Virginia Euwer Wolff – True Believer
- 2002: Nancy Farmer – The House of the Scorpion
- 2003: Polly Horvath – The Canning Season
- 2004: Pete Hautman – Godless
- 2005: Jeanne Birdsall – The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy
- 2006: M.T. Anderson – The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. I
National Book Award Winners – Poetry
- 1950: William Carlos Williams – Paterson: Book III and Selected Poems
- 1951: Wallace Stevens – The Auroras of Autumn
- 1952: Marianne Moore – Collected Poems
- 1953: Archibald MacLeish – Collected Poems, 1917-1952
- 1954: Conrad Aiken – Collected Poems
- 1955: Wallace Stevens – The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens
- 1956: W.H. Auden – The Shield of Achilles
- 1957: Richard Wilbur – Things of This World
- 1958: Robert Penn Warren – Promises: Poems, 1954-1956
- 1959: Theodore Roethke – Words for the Wind
- 1960: Robert Lowell – Life Studies
- 1961: Randall Jarrell – The Woman at the Washington Zoo
- 1962: Alan Dugan – Poems
- 1963: William Stafford – Traveling Through the Dark
- 1964: John Crowe Ransom – Selected Poems
- 1965: Theodore Roethke – The Far Field
- 1966: James Dickey – Buckdancer’s Choice
- 1967: James Merrill – Nights and Days
- 1968: Robert Bly – The Light Around the Body
- 1969: John Berryman – His Toy, His Dream, His Rest
- 1970: Elizabeth Bishop – The Complete Poems
- 1971: Mona Van Duyn – To See, To Take
- 1972: Frank O’Hara – The Collected Works of Frank O’Hara
- 1972: Howard Moss – Selected Poems
- 1973: A. R. Ammons – Collected Poems, 1951-1971′
- 1974: Allen Ginsberg – The Fall of America: Poems of these States, 1965-1971
- 1974: Adrienne Rich – Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971-1972
- 1975: Marilyn Hacker – Presentation Piece
- 1976: John Ashbery – Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror
- 1977: Richard Eberhart – Collected Poems, 1930-1976
- 1978: Howard Nemerov – The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov
- 1979: James Merrill – Mirabell: Book of Numbers
- 1980: Philip Levine – Ashes: Poems New and Old
- 1981: Lisel Mueller – The Need to Hold Still
- 1982: William Bronk – Life Supports: New and Collected Poems
- 1983: Galway Kinnell – Selected Poems
- 1983: Charles Wright – Country Music: Selected Early Poems
- 1985: No Award
- 1986: No Award
- 1987: No Award
- 1988: No Award
- 1989: No Award
- 1990: No Award
- 1991: Philip Levine – What Work Is
- 1992: Mary Oliver – New & Selected Poems
- 1993: A. R. Ammons – Garbage
- 1994: James Tate – A Worshipful Company of Fletchers
- 1995: Stanley Kunitz – Passing Through: The Later Poems
- 1996: Hayden Carruth – Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey
- 1997: William Meredith – Effort at Speech: New & Selected Poems
- 1998: Gerald Stern – This Time: New and Selected Poems
- 1999: Ai – Vice: New & Selected Poems
- 2000: Lucille Clifton – Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000
- 2001: Alan Dugan – Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry
- 2002: Ruth Stone – In the Next Galaxy
- 2003: C. K. Williams – The Singing
- 2004: Jean Valentine – Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965-2003
- 2005: W. S. Merwin – Migration: New & Selected Poems
- 2006: Nathaniel Mackey – Splay Anthem
National Book Award Winners – Nonfiction
- 1950: Ralph L. Rusk – Ralph Waldo Emerson (article on Ralph Waldo Emerson)
- 1951: Newton Arvin – Herman Melville (article on Herman Melville)
- 1952: Rachel Carson – The Sea Around Us
- 1953: Bernard A. De Voto – The Course of Empire
- 1954: Bruce Catton – A Stillness at Appomattox
- 1955: Joseph Wood Krutch – The Measure of Man
- 1956: Herbert Kubly – An American in Italy
- 1957: George F. Kennan – Russia Leaves the War
- 1958: Catherine Drinker Bowen – The Lion and the Throne (article on Edward Coke)
- 1959: J. Christopher Herold – Mistress to an Age: A Life of Madame De Stael
- 1960: Richard Ellmann – James Joyce (article on James Joyce}
- 1961: William L. Shirer – The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
- 1962: Lewis Mumford – The City in History: Its Origins, its Transformations and its Prospects
- 1963: Leon Edel – Henry James, Vol. II: The Conquest of London, Henry James, Vol. III: The Middle Years
- 1984: Robert V. Remini – Andrew Jackson & the Course of American Democracy, 1833-1845 (article on Andrew Jackson)
- 1985: J. Anthony Lukas – Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families
- 1986: Barry Lopez – Arctic Dreams
- 1987: Richard Rhodes – The Making of the Atomic Bomb
- 1988: Neil Sheehan – A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (article on John Paul Vann)
- 1989: Thomas L. Friedman – From Beirut to Jerusalem
- 1990: Ron Chernow – The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance
- 1991: Orlando Patterson – Freedom
- 1992: Paul Monette – Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story
- 1993: Gore Vidal – United States: Essays 1952-1992
- 1994: Sherwin B. Nuland – How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter
- 1995: Tina Rosenberg – The Haunted Land: Facing Europe’s Ghosts After Communism
- 1996: James P. Carroll – An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War that Came Between Us
- 1997: Joseph J. Ellis – American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson
- 1998: Edward Ball – Slaves in the Family
- 1999: John W. Dower – Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II
- 2000: Nathaniel Philbrick – In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
- 2001: Andrew Solomon – The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
- 2002: Robert A. Caro – Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson
- 2003: Carlos Eire – Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy
- 2004: Kevin Boyle – Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age
- 2005: Joan Didion – The Year of Magical Thinking
- 2006: Timothy Egan – The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
Winners of the National Book Award – Fiction
- 1950: Nelson Algren – The Man with the Golden Arm
- 1951: William Faulkner – The Collected Stories of William Faulkner
- 1952: James Jones – From Here to Eternity
- 1953: Ralph Ellison – Invisible Man
- 1954: Saul Bellow – The Adventures of Augie March
- 1955: William Faulkner – A Fable
- 1956: John O’Hara – Ten North Frederick
- 1957: Wright Morris – The Field of Vision
- 1958: John Cheever – The Wapshot Chronicle
- 1959: Bernard Malamud – The Magic Barrel
- 1960: Philip Roth – Goodbye, Columbus
- 1961: Conrad Richter – The Waters of Kronos
- 1962: Walker Percy – The Moviegoer
- 1963: J. F. Powers – Morte D’Urban
- 1964: John Updike – The Centaur
- 1965: Saul Bellow – Herzog
- 1966: Katherine Anne Porter – The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter
- 1967: Bernard Malamud – The Fixer
- 1968: Thornton Wilder – The Eighth Day
- 1969: Jerzy Kosinski – Steps
- 1970: Joyce Carol Oates – Them
- 1971: Saul Bellow – Mr. Sammler’s Planet
- 1972: Flannery O’Connor – The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor
- 1973: John Barth – Chimera
- 1973: John Williams – Augustus
- 1974: Thomas Pynchon – Gravity’s Rainbow
- 1974: Isaac Bashevis Singer – A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories
- 1975: Robert Stone – Dog Soldiers
- 1975: Thomas Williams – The Hair of Harold Roux
- 1976: William Gaddis – J R
- 1977: Wallace Stegner – The Spectator Bird
- 1978: Mary Lee Settle – Blood Ties
- 1979: Tim O’Brien – Going After Cacciato
- 1980: William Styron – Sophie’s Choice
- 1980: John Irving – The World According to Garp
- 1981: Wright Morris – Plains Song
- 1981: John Cheever – The Stories of John Cheever
- 1982: John Updike – Rabbit is Rich
- 1982: William Maxwell – So Long, See You Tomorrow
- 1983: Alice Walker – The Color Purple
- 1983: Eudora Welty – Collected Stories of Eudora Welty
- 1984: Ellen Gilchrist – Victory Over Japan: A Book of Stories
- 1985: Don DeLillo – White Noise
- 1986: E.L. Doctorow – World’s Fair
- 1987: Larry Heinemann – Paco’s Story
- 1988: Pete Dexter – Paris Trout
- 1989: John Casey – Spartina
- 1990: Charles Johnson – Middle Passage
- 1991: Norman Rush – Mating
- 1992: Cormac McCarthy – All the Pretty Horses
- 1993: E. Annie Proulx – The Shipping News
- 1994: William Gaddis – A Frolic of His Own
- 1995: Philip Roth – Sabbath’s Theater
- 1996: Andrea Barrett – Ship Fever and Other Stories
- 1997: Charles Frazier – Cold Mountain
- 1998: Alice McDermott – Charming Billy
- 1999: Ha Jin – Waiting
- 2000: Susan Sontag – In America
- 2001: Jonathan Franzen – The Corrections
- 2002: Julia Glass – Three Junes
- 2003: Shirley Hazzard – The Great Fire
- 2004: Lily Tuck – The News from Paraguay
- 2005: William Vollmann – Europe Central
- 2006: Richard Powers – The Echo Maker
- 2007: Denis Johnson – Tree of Smoke
