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Book Awards » National Book Critics Circle Award - Criticism

Categories: General Nonfiction, Literary Fiction, Memoir / Autobiography, Biography, Criticism, Poetry, Autobiography / Biography
The National Book Critics Circle, founded in 1974, is a nonprofit organization consisting of more than 600 active book reviewers from all over the country who are interested in honoring quality writing and communicating with one another about common concerns. Each year in March, they present awards to the best books published in English in six categories: Fiction, General Nonfiction, Biography, Autobiography, Poetry, and Criticism. *In 2005 the category Autobiography/Biography was separated into Memoir/Autobiography and Biography.

2020

Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration

2020

Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration

2019

Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval
Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval
Author: Saidiya Hartman
  ?


Other Versions: Audio CD (Unabridged)

2018

Feel Free: Essays
Feel Free: Essays
Author: Zadie Smith
  ?


Other Versions: Paperback

2017

You Play the Girl: On Playboy Bunnies, Stepford Wives, Train Wrecks, & Other Mixed Messages
You Play the Girl: On Playboy Bunnies, Stepford Wives, Train Wrecks, & Other Mixed Messages
Author: Carina Chocano
  ?


Other Versions: Paperback

2016

White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide
White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide
Author: Carol Anderson
  • Currently 4.3/5 Stars.
 2


Other Versions: Paperback, Audio CD

2014

The Essential Ellen Willis
The Essential Ellen Willis
Author: Ellen Willis
  ?


Other Versions: Paperback, Audio CD

2013

Distant Reading
Distant Reading
Author: Franco Moretti
  ?


Other Versions: Paperback, Audio CD

2012

Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights
Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights
Author: Marina Warner
  ?


Other Versions: Hardcover, Paperback

2011

Otherwise Known as the Human Condition: Selected Essays and Reviews
Otherwise Known as the Human Condition: Selected Essays and Reviews
Author: Geoff Dyer
  ?


Other Versions: Hardcover, Paperback

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2010

Lyric Poetry and Modern Politics: Russia, Poland, and the West
Lyric Poetry and Modern Politics: Russia, Poland, and the West
Author: Clare Cavanagh
  ?


Other Versions: Hardcover, Paperback

2009

Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays
Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays
Author: Eula Biss, Eula Biss
  • Currently 4.8/5 Stars.
 2


Other Versions: Paperback

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2008

Children's Literature: A Reader's History from Aesop to Harry Potter
Children's Literature: A Reader's History from Aesop to Harry Potter
Author: Seth Lerer
  • Currently 5/5 Stars.
 1


Other Versions: Paperback

2007

The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century
The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century
Author: Alex Ross
  • Currently 4.5/5 Stars.
 1


Other Versions: Paperback, Audio Cassette (Unabridged), Audio CD (Unabridged), Paperback

2006

Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences
Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences
Author: Lawrence Weschler
  ?


Other Versions: Hardcover

2005

The Undiscovered Country: Poetry in the Age of Tin
The Undiscovered Country: Poetry in the Age of Tin
Author: William Logan
  ?


Other Versions: Paperback

2004

Where You're At
Where You're At
Author: Patrick Neate
  • Currently 3/5 Stars.
 1


Other Versions: Paperback, Paperback

2003

River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West
River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West
Author: Rebecca Solnit, Rebecca Solnit
  • Currently 3.8/5 Stars.
 4


Other Versions: Hardcover

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2002

Tests of Time : Essays
Tests of Time : Essays
Author: William H. Gass
  ?


Other Versions: Hardcover

2001

The War Against Cliche : Essays and Reviews 1971-2000 (Vintage)
The War Against Cliche : Essays and Reviews 1971-2000 (Vintage)
Author: Martin Amis
  • Currently 3.5/5 Stars.
 1


Other Versions: Hardcover

2000

Quarrel  Quandary : Essays
Quarrel Quandary : Essays
Author: Cynthia Ozick, Cynthia Ozick
  ?


Other Versions: Hardcover

1999

Borges: Selected Non-Fictions : volume 3
Borges: Selected Non-Fictions : volume 3
Author: Jorge Luis Borges
  ?


Other Versions: Hardcover

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1998

Visions of Jazz: The First Century
Visions of Jazz: The First Century
Author: Gary Giddins
  • Currently 3/5 Stars.
 1


Other Versions: Paperback

1997

Making Waves : Essays
Making Waves : Essays
Author: Mario Vargas Llosa
  • Currently 4.5/5 Stars.
 1


Other Versions: Paperback

1996

Finding a Form: Essays
Finding a Form: Essays
Author: William H. Gass
  ?


Other Versions: Hardcover

1995

The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France
The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France
Author: Robert Darnton
  ?


Other Versions: Hardcover, Hardcover, Paperback

1994

The Culture of Bruising: Essays on Prizefighting, Literature, and Modern American Culture
The Culture of Bruising: Essays on Prizefighting, Literature, and Modern American Culture
Author: Gerald Early
  ?


Other Versions: Hardcover, Hardcover

1993

Opera in America : A Cultural History
Opera in America : A Cultural History
Author: John Dizikes
  ?


Other Versions: Paperback

1992

Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That  Remade America
Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America
Author: Garry Wills
  • Currently 3.8/5 Stars.
 11


Other Versions: Hardcover, Paperback, Audio Cassette (Unabridged), Paperback

1991

Holocaust Testimonies : The Ruins of Memory
Holocaust Testimonies : The Ruins of Memory
Author: Lawrence L. Langer
  • Currently 3/5 Stars.
 1


Other Versions: Hardcover

1990

Encounters  Reflections: Art in the Historical Present
Encounters Reflections: Art in the Historical Present
Author: Arthur C. Danto
  ?


Other Versions: Hardcover

1989

Not by Fact Alone: Essays on the Writing and Reading of History
Not by Fact Alone: Essays on the Writing and Reading of History
Author: John Clive
  ?


Other Versions: Hardcover, Hardcover

1988

Works and Lives: The Anthropologist As Author
Works and Lives: The Anthropologist As Author
Author: Clifford Geertz
  ?


Other Versions: Paperback, Hardcover

1987

Dance Writings and Poetry
Dance Writings and Poetry
Author: Edwin Denby
  • Currently 4/5 Stars.
 1


Other Versions: Hardcover

1986

Less Than One : Selected Essays
Less Than One : Selected Essays
Author: Joseph Brodsky
  • Currently 4/5 Stars.
 1


Other Versions: Hardcover, Hardcover

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1985

Habitations of the Word: Essays (Cornell Paperbacks)
Habitations of the Word: Essays (Cornell Paperbacks)
Author: William H. Gass
  ?


Other Versions: Hardcover, Hardcover

1984

Twentieth Century Pleasures: Prose on Poetry
Twentieth Century Pleasures: Prose on Poetry
Author: Robert Hass
  • Currently 4/5 Stars.
 1


Other Versions: Hardcover, Paperback

1983

Hugging the Shore: Essays and Criticism
Hugging the Shore: Essays and Criticism
Author: John Updike
  • Currently 4/5 Stars.
 1


Other Versions: Hardcover, Paperback, Paperback

1982

The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal
The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal
Author: Gore Vidal
  • Currently 5/5 Stars.
 1


Other Versions: Hardcover, Paperback, Paperback

1981

Virgil Thomson Reader
Virgil Thomson Reader
Author: Virgil Thomson
  • Currently 3.5/5 Stars.
 1


1980

Part of Nature, Part of Us

1979

The Gnostic Gospels
The Gnostic Gospels
Author: Elaine Pagels
  • Currently 3.5/5 Stars.
 45


Other Versions: Paperback, Hardcover, Paperback, Audio Cassette, Paperback, Paperback, Paperback, Paperback, Paperback, Paperback, Paperback, Paperback, Hardcover, Paperback, Paperback

1978

Modern Art: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Modern Art: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Author: Meyer Schapiro
  ?


Other Versions: Paperback, Hardcover, Paperback, Audio Cassette, Paperback, Paperback, Paperback, Paperback, Paperback, Paperback, Paperback, Paperback, Hardcover, Paperback, Paperback

1977

On Photography
On Photography
Author: Susan Sontag
  • Currently 2.3/5 Stars.
 5


Other Versions: Paperback, Hardcover, Paperback, Paperback, Paperback, Paperback, Hardcover, Hardcover, Hardcover

The Market's bargain prices are even better for Paperbackswap club members!
Retail Price: $16.00
Buy New: $12.79 (save 20%) or
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1976

The Uses of Enchantment : The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales
The Uses of Enchantment : The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales
Author: Bruno Bettelheim
  • Currently 3.1/5 Stars.
 7


Other Versions: Paperback, Paperback, Paperback, Paperback, Paperback, Paperback, Audio CD (MP3 Una)

1975

The Great War and Modern Memory
The Great War and Modern Memory
Author: Paul Fussell
  • Currently 4/5 Stars.
 9


Other Versions: Hardcover, Hardcover, Audio Cassette, Audio Cassette, Audio Cassette, Hardcover, Paperback, Paperback, Paperback