Each year, the National Book Critics Circle presents awards for the finest books published in English in six categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Biography, Autobiography, Poetry, and Criticism.
The National Book Critics Circle Award
2014 Winners & Finalists
Fiction Winner
- Marilynne Robinson, Lila (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Fiction Finalists
- Rabih Alameddine, An Unnecessary Woman (Grove Press)
- Marlon James, A Brief History of Seven Killings (Riverhead Books)
- Lily King, Euphoria (Atlantic Monthly Press)
- Chang-rae Lee, On Such a Full Sea (Riverhead Books)
General Nonfiction Winner
- David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation (Alfred A. Knopf)
General Nonfiction Finalists
- Peter Finn and Petra Couvee, The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle over a Forbidden Book (Pantheon)
- Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (Henry Holt & Co.)
- Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, translated from the French by Arthur Goldhammer (Belknap Press/Harvard University Press)
- Hector Tobar, Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle that Set Them Free (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Biography Winner
- John Lahr, Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh (W.W. Norton & Co.)
Biography Finalists
- Ezra Greenspan, William Wells Brown: An African American Life (W.W. Norton & Co.)
- S.C. Gwynne, Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson (Scribner)
- Ian S. MacNiven, “Literchoor Is My Beat”: A Life of James Laughlin, Publisher of New Directions (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
- Miriam Pawel, The Crusades of Cesar Chavez: A Biography (Bloomsbury)
Autobiography
- Roz Chast, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? (Bloomsbury)
Autobiography/Memoir Finalists
- Blake Bailey, The Splendid Things We Planned: A Family Portrait (W.W. Norton & Co.)
- Lacy M. Johnson, The Other Side (Tin House)
- Gary Shteyngart, Little Failure (Random House)
- Meline Toumani, There Was and There Was Not (Metropolitan Books)
Poetry Winner
- Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric (Graywolf Press)
Poetry Finalists
- Saeed Jones, Prelude to Bruise (Coffee House Press)
- Willie Perdomo, The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon (Penguin Books)
- Christian Wiman, Once in the West (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
- Jake Adam York, Abide (Southern Illinois University Press)
Criticism Winner
- Ellen Willis, The Essential Ellen Willis, edited by Nona Willis Aronowitz (University of Minnesota Press)
Criticism Finalists
- Eula Biss, On Immunity: An Innoculation (Graywolf Press)
- Vikram Chandra, Geek Sublime: The Beauty of Code, the Code of Beauty (Graywolf Press)
- Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric (Graywolf Press)
- Lynne Tillman, What Would Lynne Tillman Do? (Red Lemonade)
John Leonard Prize
- Phil Klay, Redeployment (Penguin Press)
Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing Winner
- Alexandra Schwartz
Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing Finalists
- Charles Finch
- B. K. Fischer
- Benjamin Moser
- Lisa Russ Spaar
Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award Winner
- Toni Morrison