2001
Fiction: The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
Nonfiction: The Noonday Demon by Andrew Solomon
Poetry: Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry by Alan Dugan
Young People's Literature: True Believer by Virginia Euwer Wolff

2000
Fiction: In America by Susan Sontag
Nonfiction: In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick
Poetry: Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems, 1988-2000 by Lucille Clifton
Young People's Literature: Homeless Bird by Gloria Whelan

1999
Fiction: Waiting by Ha Jin
Nonfiction: Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II by John W. Dower
Poetry: Vice: New and Selected Poems by Ai
Young People's Literature: When Zachary Beaver Came to Town by Kimberly Willis Holt

1998
Fiction: Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
Nonfiction: Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball
Poetry: This Time: New and Selected Poems by Gerald Stern
Young People's Literature: Holes by Louis Sachar

1997
Fiction: Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
Nonfiction: American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph J. Ellis
Poetry: Effort at Speech: New and Selected Poems by William Meredith
Young People's Literature: Dancing on the Edge by Han Nolan

1996
Fiction: Ship Fever by Andrea Barrett
Nonfiction: An American Requiem by James Carroll
Poetry: Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey by Hayden Carruth
Young People's Literature: Parrot in the Oven by Victor Martinez

1995
Fiction: Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth
Nonfiction: The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism by Tina Rosenberg
Poetry: Passing Through by Stanley Kunitz

1994
Fiction: A Frolic of His Own by William Gadis
Nonfiction: How We Die by Sherwin B. Nuland
Poetry: Worshipful Company of Fletchers by James Tate

1993
Fiction: The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
Nonfiction: United States: Essays, 1952-1992 by Gore Vidal
Poetry: Garbage by A.R. Ammons

1992
Fiction: All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
Nonfiction: Becoming a Man by Paul Monette
Poetry: New and Selected Poems by Mary Oliver

1991
Fiction: Mating by Norman Rush
Nonfiction: Freedom by Orlando Patterson
Poetry: What Work Is by Philip Levine

1990
Fiction: Middle Passage by Charles Johnson
Nonfiction: The House of Morgan by Ron Chernow

1989
Fiction: Spartina by John Casey
Nonfiction: From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas L. Friedman