The National Book Foundation was founded in 1989, as an outgrowth of the long-established National Book Award, with a mission to raise the cultural value of great writing in America. In the years since, the Foundation has developed an extensive array of free educational programs across the nation for readers of all ages and backgrounds, such as its Summer Writing camp in the Adirondack Mountains, its Family Literacy workshops in New York City, and its American Voices project at Native American reservations. All of its programs feature National Book Award authors, who seek to foster a love of reading and writing among participants. The awards are given in three categories:  Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry.

Fiction:
Three Junes / Julia Glass (Winner)
Big If / Mark Costello
You Are Not a Stranger Here / Adam Haslett
Gorgeous Lies / Martha McPhee
The Heaven of Mercury / Brad Watson

Nonfiction:
Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson / Robert A. Caro (Winner)
When Smoke Ran Like Water: Tales of Environmental Deception and the Battle Against Pollution / Devra Davis
The Last American Man / Elizabeth Gilbert
Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science / Atul Gawande
Mapping Human History: Discovering the Past Through Our Genes / Steve Olson

Poetry:
In the Next Galaxy / Ruth Stone (Winner)
Sleeping with the Dictionary / Harryette Mullen
The Unswept Room / Sharon Olds
The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body / Alberto Ríos
Shadow of Heaven / Ellen Bryant Voigt

Fiction:
The Corrections / Jonathan Franzen (Winner)
Among the Missing / Dan Chaon
Look at Me / Jennifer Egan
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse / Louise Erdrich
Highwire Moon / Susan Straight

Nonfiction:
The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression / Andrew Solomon (Winner)
American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood / Marie Arana
The Lost Children of Wilder: The Epic Struggle to Change Foster Care / Nina Bernstein
My Story As Told By Water / David James Duncan
Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland / Jan T. Gross

Poetry:
Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry / Alan Dugan (Winner)
Rooms Are Never Finished / Agha Shahid Ali
Mercurochrome / Wanda Coleman
Brutal Imagination / Cornelius Eady
They Can't Take That Away From Me / Gail Mazur

Fiction:
In America / Susan Sontag (Winner)
The Feast of Love / Charles Baxter
The Diagnosis / Alan Lightman
Blonde / Joyce Carol Oates
Blue Angel / Francine Prose

Nonfiction:
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex / Nathaniel Philbrick(Winner)
From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present / Jacques Barzun
The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach / Alice Kaplan
W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963 / David Levering Lewis
Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon/ Patrick Tierney

Poetry:
Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems, 1988-2000 / Lucille Clifton (Winner)
Tell Me / Kim Addonizio
A New Selected Poems / Galway Kinnell
New Addresses: Poems / Kenneth Koch
The Other Lover / Bruce Smith

Fiction:
Waiting / Ha Jin (Winner)
House of Sand and Fog / Andre Dubus III
Plainsong / Kent Haruf
Hummingbird House / Patricia Henley
Who Do You Love / Jean Thompson

Nonfiction:
Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II / John W. Dower (Winner)
Woman: An Intimate Geography / Natalie Angier
Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War / Mark Bowden
Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation / John Phillip Santos
Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette / Judith Thurman

Poetry:
Vice: New and Selected Poems / Ai (Winner)
Vita Nova/ Louise Glück
Configurations: New and Selected Poems / Clarence Major
The Pilot Star Elegies / Sherod Santos
Repair / C.K. Williams

Fiction:
Charming Billy / Alice McDermott (Winner)
Kaaterskill Falls / Allegra Goodman
The Healing / Gayl Jones
Damascus Gate / Robert Stone
A Man in Full / Tom Wolfe

Nonfiction:
Slaves in the Family / Edward Ball  (Winner)
Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human / Harold Bloom
There Once Was a World: A 900-Year Chronicle of the Shtetl of Eishyshok / Yaffa Eliach
A Slant of Sun: One Child's Courage / Beth Kephart
All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery / Henry Mayer

Poetry:
This Time: New and Selected Poems / Gerald Stern (Winner)
The Art of the Lathe / B.H. Fairchild
The Little Space: Poems Selected and New / Alicia S. Ostriker
Carnival Evening: New and Selected Poems 1968-1998 / Linda Pastan
From the Devotions / Carl Phillips

Fiction:
Cold Mountain / Charles Frazier  (Winner)
Echo House / Ward Just
The Puttermesser Papers / Cynthia Ozick
Le Divorce / Diane Johnson
Underworld / Don DeLillo

Nonfiction:
American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson / Joseph Ellis (Winner)
The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara / David Kertzer
My Brother / Jamaica Kincaid
The Undertaking / Thomas Lynch  
Whittaker Chambers / Sam Tanenhaus

Poetry:
Effort at Speech: New and Selected Poems / William Meredith (Winner)
Locusts at the Edge of Summer: New & Selected Poems / John Balaban
Desire/ Frank Bidart
Primate Behavior / Sarah Lindsay
The Fields of Praise: New and Selected Poems / Marilyn Nelson

Fiction:
Ship Fever and Other Stories / Andrea Barrett (Winner)
Atticus/ Ron Hansen
The Giant's House / Elizabeth McCracken
Martin Dressler / Steven Millhauser
The River Beyond the World / Janet Peery

Nonfiction:
An American Requiem / James Carroll (Winner)
The Temple Bombing / Melissa Fay Greene
The Living and the Dead / Paul Hendrickson
The Life of Nelson A. Rockefeller / Cary Reich
Fruitful: A Real Mother in the Modern World / Anne Roiphe

Poetry:
Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey, Poems 1991-1995 / Hayden Carruth (Winner)
The Terrible Stories / Lucille Clifton
Sun Under Wood / Robert Hass
The Crack in Everything / Alicia Suskin Ostriker
Walking the Black Cat / Charles Simic

Fiction:
Sabbath's Theater / Philip Roth (Winner)
All Soul's Rising / Madison Smartt Bell
krik? krak! / Edwidge Danticat
Interstate / Stephen Dixon
The House on the Lagoon / Rosario Ferre

Nonfiction:
The Haunted Land / Tina Rosenberg (Winner)
Salvation on Sand Mountain / Dennis Covington
Darwin's Dangerous Idea / Daniel C. Dennett
A Civil Action / Jonathan Harr
Ghosts of Mississippi / Maryanne Vollers

Poetry:
Passing Through / Stanley Kunitz (Winner)
Collected Poems 1945-1990 / Barbara Howes
In the Crevice of Time / Josephine Jacobsen
New & Selected Poems / Donald Justice
New and Selected Poems / Gary Soto