The Reading Nook

The National Book Award Project has no time limit. The goal is to read all the books that have won or been shortlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction. The list (cross-outs if I’ve read them; links if I’ve reviewed them; winners are bolded):

1950
Nelson Algren – The Man with the Golden Arm

1951
William Faulkner – The Collected Stories of William Faulkner
Brendan Gill – The Trouble of One House

1952
James Jones – From Here to Eternity
James Agee – The Morning Watch
Truman Capote – The Grass Harp
William Faulkner – Requiem for a Nun
Caroline Gordon – The Strange Children
Thomas Mann – The Holy Sinner
John P. Marquand – Melville Goodwin USA
J. D. Salinger – The Catcher in the Rye
William Styron – Lie Down in Darkness
Jessamyn West – The Witch Diggers
Herman Wouk – The Caine Mutiny

1953
Ralph Ellison – Invisible Man
Isabel Bolton – Many Mansions
H. L. Davis – Winds of Morning
Thomas Gallagher – The Gathering Darkness
Ernest Hemingway – The Old Man and the Sea
Carl Jones – Jefferson Selleck
Peter Martin – The Landsman
John Steinbeck – East of Eden
William Carlos Williams – The Build Up

1954
Saul Bellow – The Adventures of Augie March

1955
William Faulkner – A Fable
Harriet Arnow – The Dollmaker
Hamilton Basso – The View from Pompey’s Head
Davis Grubb – The Night of the Hunter
Randall Jarrell – Pictures from an Institution
Milton Lott – The Last Hunt
Frederick Manfred – The Last Grizzly
William March – The Bad Seed
Wright Morris – The Huge Season
Frank Rooney – The Courts of Memory
John Steinbeck – Sweet Thursday

1956
John O’Hara – Ten North Frederick
Paul Bowles – The Spider’s House
Shirley Ann Grau – The Black Prince
MacKinlay Kantor – Andersonville
Flannery O’Connor – A Good Man is Hard to Find
May Sarton – Faithful are the Wounds
Robert Penn Warren – Band of Angels
Eudora Welty – The Bride of the Innisfallen
Herman Wouk – Marjorie Morningstar

1957
Wright Morris – The Field of Vision
Nelson Algren – Walk on the Wild Side
James Baldwin – Giovanni’s Room
Saul Bellow – Seize the Day
B. J. Chute – Greenwillow
A. B. Guthrie – These Thousand Years
John Hersey – A Single Pebble
John Hunt – Generations of Men
Edwin O’Connor – The Last Hurrah
J. F. Powers – The Presence of Grace
Elizabeth Spencer – The Voice at the Back Door
James Thurber – Further Fables for Our Time

1958
John Cheever – The Wapshot Chronicle
James Agee – A Death in the Family
James Gould Cozzens – By Love Possessed
Mark Harris – Something About A Soldier
Andrew Lytle – The Velvet Horn
Bernard Malamud – The Assistant
Wright Morris – Love Among the Cannibals
Vladimir Nabokov – Pnin
Ayn Rand – Atlas Shrugged
Nancy Wilson Ross – The Return of Lady Brace
May Sarton – The Birth of a Grandfather

1959
Bernard Malamud – The Magic Barrel
J. P. Donleavy – The Ginger Man
William Humphrey – Home from the Hill
Vladimir Nabokov – Lolita
John O’Hara – From the Terrace
J. R. Salamanca – The Lost Country
Anya Seyton – The Winthrop Woman
Robert Travers – Anatomy of a Murder

1960
Philip Roth – Goodbye Columbus
Louis Auchincloss – Pursuit of the Prodigal
Hamilton Basso – The Light Infantry Ball
Saul Bellow – Henderson the Rain King
Evan S. Connell, Jr. – Mrs. Bridge
William Faulkner – The Mansion
Mark Harris – Wake Up, Stupid
John Hersey – The War Lover
H. L. Humes – Men Die
Shirley Jackson – The Haunting of Hill House
Elizabeth Janeway – The Third Choice
James Jones – The Pistol
Warren Miller – The Cool World
James Purdy – Malcolm
Leo Rostyn – The Return of H*Y*M*A*N*K*A*P*L*A*N*
John Updike – The Poorhouse Fair
Robert Penn Warren – The Cave
Morris West – The Devil’s Advocate

1961
Conrad Richter – The Waters of Kronos
Louis Auchincloss – The House of Five Talents
Kay Boyle – Generation without Farewell
John Hersey – The Child Buyer
John Knowles – A Separate Peace
Harper Lee – To Kill a Mockingbird
Wright Morris – Ceremony in a Lone Tree
Flannery O’Connor – The Violent Bear It Away
Elizabeth Spencer – The Light in the Piazza and Other Italian Tales
Francis Steegmuller – The Christening Party
John Updike – Rabbit, Run
Mildred Walker – The Body of a Young Man

1962
Walker Percy – The Moviegoer
Hortense Calisher – False Entry
George P. Elliott – Among the Dangs
Joseph Heller – Catch 22
Bernard Malamud – A New Life
J. D. Salinger – Franny and Zooey
Isaac Bashevis Singer – The Spinoza of Market Street and Other Stories
Edward Lewis Wallant – The Pawnbroker
Joan Williams – The Morning and the Evening
Richard Yates – Revolutionary Road

1963
J. F. Powers – Morte D’Urban
Vladimir Nabokov – Pale Fire
Katherine Anne Porter – Ship of Fools
Dawn Powell – The Golden Spur
Clancy Sigal – Going Away
John Updike – Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories

1964
John Updike – The Centaur
Bernard Malamud – Idiots First
Mary McCarthy – The Group
Thomas Pynchon – V
Harvey Swados – The Will

1965
Saul Bellow – Herzog
Louis Auchincloss – The Rector of Justin
John Hawkes – Second Skin
Richard Kim – The Martyred
Wallace Markfield – To an Early Grave
Vladimir Nabokov – The Defense
Isaac Bashevis Singer – Short Friday

1966
Katherine A. Porter – The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter
Jesse Hill Ford – The Liberation of Lord Byron Jones
Peter Matthiessen – At Play in the Fields of the Lord
James Merrill – The (Diblos) Notebook
Flannery O’Connor – Everything that Rises Must Converge
Harry Petrakis – Pericles on 31st Street

1967
Bernard Malamud – The Fixer
Louis Auchincloss – The Embezzler
Edwin O’Connor – All in the Family
Walker Percy – The Last Gentleman
Harry Petrakis – A Dream of Kings
Wilfrid Sheeds – Office Politics

1968
Thornton Wilder – The Eighth Day
Norman Mailer – Why Are We in Vietnam?
Joyce Carol Oates – A Garden of Earthly Delights
Chaim Potok – The Chosen
William Styron – Confessions of Nat Turner

1969
Jerzy Kosinski – Steps
John Barth – Lost in the Funhouse
Frederick Exley – A Fan’s Notes
Joyce Carol Oates – Expensive People
Thomas Rogers – The Pursuit of Happiness

1970
Joyce Carol Oates – Them
Leonard Gardner – Fat City
Leonard Michaels – Going Places
Jean Stafford – The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford
Kurt Vonnegut – Slaughterhouse Five

1971
Saul Bellow – Mr. Sammler’s Planet
James Dickey – Deliverance
Shirley Hazzard – The Bay of Noon
John Updike – Bech: A Book
Eudora Welty – Losing Battles

1972
Flannery O’Connor – The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor
Frederick Buechner – Lion Country
E. L. Doctorow – The Book of Daniel
Stanley Elkin – The Dick Gibson Show
Tom McHale – Farragan’s Retreat
Joyce Carol Oates – Wonderland
Cynthia Ozick – The Pagan Rabbi and Other Stories
Walker Percy – Love Among the Ruins
Earl Thompson – A Garden of Sand
John Updike – Rabbit Redux

1973
John Barth – Chimera
John Williams – Augustus
Brock Brauer – The Late Great Creature
Alan Friedman – Hermaphrodeity
Barry Hannah – Geronimo Rex
George V. Higgins – The Friends of Eddie Coyle
R. M. Koster – The Prince
Vladimir Nabokov – Transparent Things
Ishmael Reed – Mumbo Jumbo
Thomas Rogers – The Confession of a Child of the Century
Isaac Bashevis Singer – Enemies, A Love Story
Eudora Welty – The Optimist’s Daughter

1974
Thomas Pyncheon – Gravity’s Rainbow
Isaac Bashevis Singer – A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories
Doris Betts – Beasts of the World and Other Stories
John Cheever – The World of Apples
Ellen Douglas – Apostles of Light
Stanley Elkin – Searches and Seizures
John Gardner – Nickel Mountain
Tom McGuane – Ninety-Two in the Shade
Wilfrid Sheed – People Will Always Be Kind
Gore Vidal – Burr
Joy Williams – State of Grace

1975
Robert Stone – Dog Soldiers
Thomas Williams – The Hair of Harold Roux
Donald Barthelme – The Guilty Pleasures
Gail Godwin – The Odd Woman
Joseph Heller – Something Happened
Toni Morrison – Sula
Vladimir Nabokov – Look at the Harlequins!
Grace Paley – Enormous Changes at the Last Minute
Philip Roth – My Life as a Man
Mark Smith – The Death of a Detective

1976
Wiliam Gaddis – JR
Saul Bellow – Humboldt’s Gift
Hortense Calisher – The Collected Stories of Hortense Calisher
Johanna Kaplan – Other People’s Lives
Vladimir Nabokov – Tyrant’s Destroyed and Other Stories
Larry Woiwode – Beyond the Bedroom Wall

1977
Wallace Stegner – The Spectator Bird
Raymond Carver – Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?
MacDonald Harris – The Balloonist
Ursula K. Le Guin – Orsinian Tales
Cynthia Propper Seton – A Fine Romance

1978
Mary Lee Settle – Blood Ties
Robert Coover – The Public Burning
Peter De Vries – Madder Music
James Alan McPherson – Elbow Room
John Sayles – Union Dues

1979
Tim O’Brien – Going After Cacciato
John Cheever – The Stories of John Cheever
John Irving – The World According to Garp
Diane Johnson – Lying Low
David Plante – The Family

1980
William Styron – Sophie’s Choice
James Baldwin – Just Above My Head
Norman Mailer – The Executioner’s Song
Philip Roth – The Ghost Writer
Scott Spencer – Endless Love

1981
Wright Morris – Plains Song
Shirley Hazzard – The Transit of Venus
William Maxwell – So Long, See You Tomorrow
Walker Percy – The Second Coming
Eudora Welty – The Collected Stories

1982
John Updike – Rabbit is Rich
Mark Helprin – Ellis Island and Other Stories
John Irving – The Hotel New Hampshire
Robert Stone – A Flag for Sunrise
William Wharton – Dad

1983
Alice Walker – The Color Purple
Gail Godwin – A Mother and Two Daughters
Bobbie Ann Mason – Shiloh and Other Stories
Paul Theroux – The Mosquito Coast
Anne Tyler – Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant

1984
Ellen Gilchrist – Victory Over Japan: A Book of Stories
Alison Lurie – Foreign Affairs
Philip Roth – The Anatomy Lesson

1985
Don DeLillo – White Noise
Ursula K. Le Guin – Always Coming Home
Hugh Nissenson – The Tree of Life

1986
E. L. Doctorow – World’s Fair
Norman Rush – Whites
Peter Taylor – A Summons to Memphis

1987
Larry Heinemann – Paco’s Story
Alice McDermott – That Night
Toni Morrison – Beloved
Howard Norman – The Northern Lights
Philip Roth – The Counterlife

1988
Peter Dexter – Paris Trout
Don DeLillo – Libra
Mary McGarry Morris – Vanished
James F. Powers – Wheat That Springeth Green
Anne Tyler – Breathing Lessons

1989
John Casey – Spartina
E. L. Doctorow – Billy Bathgate
Katherine Dunn – Geek Love
Oscar Hijuelos – Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
Amy Tan – The Joy Luck Club

1990
Charles Johnson – Middle Passage
Felipe Alfau – Chromos
Elena Castedo – Paradise
Jessica Hagedorn – Dogeaters
Joyce Carol Oates – Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart

1991
Norman Rush – Mating
Louis Begley – Wartime Lies
Stephen Dixon – Frog
Stanley Elkin – The MacGuffin
Sandra Scofield – Beyond Deserving

1992
Cormac McCarthy – All the Pretty Horses
Dorothy Allison – Bastard Out of Carolina
Cristina Garcia – Dreaming in Cuban
Edward P. Jones – Lost in the City
Robert Stone – Outerbridge Reach

1993
E. Annie Proulx – The Shipping News
Amy Bloom – Come to Me
Thom Jones – The Puligist at Rest
Richard Powers – Operation Wandering Soul
Bob Shacochis – Swimming in the Volcano

1994
William Gaddis – A Frolic of His Own
Ellen Currie – Moses Supposes
Richard Dooling – White Man’s Grave
Howard Norman – The Bird Artist
Grace Paley – The Collected Stories

1995
Philip Roth – Sabbath’s Theater
Madison Smartt Bell – All Souls’ Rising
Edwidge Danticat – Krik? Krak!
Stephen Dixon – Interstate
Rosario Ferre – The House on the Lagoon

1996
Andrea Barrett – Ship Fever and Other Stories
Ron Hansen – Atticus
Elizabeth McCracken – The Giant’s House
Stephen Millhauser – Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer
Janet Peery – The River Beyond the World

1997
Charles Frazier – Cold Mountain
Don DeLillo – Underworld
Diane Johnson – Le Divorce
Ward Just – Echo House
Cynthia Ozick – The Puttermesser Papers

1998
Alice McDermott – Charming Billy
Allegra Goodman – Kaaterskill Falls
Gayl Jones – The Healing
Robert Stone – Damascus Gate
Thomas Wolfe – A Man in Full

1999
Ha Jin – Waiting
Andre Dubus III – The House of Sand and Fog
Kent Haruf – Plainsong
Patricia Henley – Hummingbird House
Jean Thompson – Who Do You Love

2000
Susan Sontag – In America
Charles Baxter – The Feast of Love
Alan Lightman – The Diagnosis
Joyce Carol Oates – Blonde
Francine Prose – Blue Angel

2001
Jonathan Franzen – The Corrections
Dan Chaon – Among the Missing
Jennifer Egan – Look at Me
Louise Erdrich – The Last Report on the Miracle at Little No Horse
Susan Straight – Highwire Moon

2002
Julia Glass – Three Junes
Mark Costello – Big If
Adam Haslett – You Are Not A Stranger Here
Martha McPhee – Gorgeous Lies
Brad Watson – The Heaven of Mercury

2003
Shirley Hazzard – The Great Fire
T. C. Boyle – Drop City
Edward P. Jones – The Known World
Scott Spenser – A Ship Made of Paper
Marianne Wiggins – Evidence of Things Unseen: A Novel

2004
Lily Tuck – The News from Paraguay
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum – Madeleine is Sleeping
Christine Schutt – Florida
Joan Silber – Ideas of Heaven: A Ring of Stories
Kate Walbert – Our Kind

2005
William T. Vollman – Europe Central
E. L. Doctorow – The March
Mary Gaitskill – Veronica
Christopher Sorrentino – Trance
Rene Steinke – Holy Skirts

2006
Richard Powers – The Echo Maker
Mark Z. Danielewski – Only Revolutions
Ken Kalfus – A Disorder Peculiar to the Country
Dana Spiotta – Eat the Document
Jess Walter – The Zero

2007
Denis Johnson – Tree of Smoke
Mischa Berlinski – Fieldwork (my review)
Lydia Davis – Varieties of Disturbance
Joshua Ferris – Then We Came to the End
Jim Shepard – Like You’d Understand, Anyway