National Book Awards -
1981
AUTOBIOGRAPHY/BIOGRAPHY (HARDCOVER)
Winner:
Justin Kaplan, Walt Whitman
Finalists:
Robert K. Massie - Peter the Great
James R. Mellow - Nathaniel Hawthorne in His Times
Peter Stansky and William Abrahams – Orwell: The Transformation
Ronald Steel - Walter Lippman and the American Century
AUTOBIOGRAPHY/BIOGRAPHY (PAPERBACK)
Winner:
Deirdre Bair, Samuel Beckett
Finalists:
E.K. Brown - Willa Cather
Leon Edel – Bloomsbury: A House of Lions
Maureen Howard - Facts of Life
Meryle Secrest - Being Bernard Berenson
CHILDREN'S BOOK, FICTION (HARDCOVER)
Winner:
Betsy Byars, The Night Swimmers
Finalists:
Paula Fox - A Place Apart
Katherine Paterson - Jacob Have I Loved
Ouida Sebestyen - Far From Home
Jan Slepian - The Alfred Summer
CHILDREN'S BOOK, FICTION (PAPERBACK)
Winner:
Beverly Cleary, Ramona and Her Mother
Finalists:
Lloyd Alexander - The High King
Sue Ellen Bridgers - All Together Now
S.E. Hinton - Tex
Ellen Raskin - The Westing Game
CHILDREN'S BOOK, NONFICTION (HARDCOVER)
Winner:
Alison Cragin Herzig & Jane Lawrence Mali, Oh, Boy! Babies
Finalists:
Jean Fritz - Where Do You Think You're Going, Christopher Columbus?
William Jaspersohn - The Ballpark
Milton Meltzer - All Time, All Peoples: A World History of Slavery
Peter Spier - People
FICTION (HARDCOVER)
Winner:
Wright Morris, Plains Song
> Appreciations on Best of National Book Awards Fiction Blog
Finalists:
Shirley Hazzard - The Transit of Venus
- “Contenders” Fiction Finalists Exhibition Page >William Maxwell - So Long, See You Tomorrow
- “Contenders” Fiction Finalists Exhibition Page >Walker Percy - The Second Coming
- “Contenders” Fiction Finalists Exhibition Page >Eudora Welty - The Collected Stories
- “Contenders” Fiction Finalists Exhibition Page >
FICTION (PAPERBACK)
Winner:
John Cheever, The Stories of John Cheever
> Appreciations on Best of National Book Awards Fiction Blog
Finalists:
Thomas Flanagan - The Year of the French
- “Contenders” Fiction Finalists Exhibition Page >Norman Mailer - The Executioner's Song
- “Contenders” Fiction Finalists Exhibition Page >Scott Spencer - Endless Love
- “Contenders” Fiction Finalists Exhibition Page >Herman Wouk - War and Remembrance
- “Contenders” Fiction Finalists Exhibition Page >
FIRST NOVEL
Winner:
Ann Arensberg, Sister Wolf
> Appreciations on Best of National Book Awards Fiction Blog
Finalists:
Jean M. Auel - The Clan of the Cave Bear
- “Contenders” Fiction Finalists Exhibition Page >Philip Caputo - Horn of Africa
- “Contenders” Fiction Finalists Exhibition Page >Johanna Kaplan - O My America
- “Contenders” Fiction Finalists Exhibition Page >Lynne Sharon Schwartz - Rough Strife
- “Contenders” Fiction Finalists Exhibition Page >
GENERAL NONFICTION (HARDCOVER)
Winner:
Maxine Hong Kingston, China Men
Finalists:
Malcolm Cowley - The Dream of the Golden Mountains
John Graves - From a Limestone Ledge
Victor S. Navasky - Naming Names
Studs Terkel - American Dreams: Lost and Found
GENERAL NONFICTION (PAPERBACK)
Winner:
Jane Kramer, The Last Cowboy
Finalists:
Joan Didion - The White Album
David Halberstam - The Powers That Be
Dan Morgan - Merchants of Grain
Paul Theroux - The Old Patagonian Express
HISTORY (HARDCOVER)
Winner:
John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality
Finalists:
James H. Billington - Fire in the Minds of Men
Steve Ozmont - The Age of Reform, 1250-1550
Carl E. Schorske - Fin-de-Siècle Vienna
Page Smith - The Shaping of America
HISTORY (PAPERBACK)
Winner:
Leon F. Litwak, Been in the Storm so Long: The Aftermath of Slavery
Finalists:
Richard Drinnon - Facing West
A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. - In the Matter of Color
Telford Taylor – Munich: The Price of Peace
Howard Zinn - A People's History of the United States
POETRY
Winner:
Lisel Mueller, The Need to Hold Still
> NBA Poetry Blog Essay and Archival Material for Mueller
Finalists:
Philip Booth - Before Sleep
Isabella Gardner - That Was Then
Mark Strand - Selected Poems
Robert Penn Warren - Being Here
SCIENCE (HARDCOVER)
Winner:
Stephen Jay Gould, The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections on Natural History
Finalists:
Claude C. Albritton, Jr. - The Abyss of Time
Rene Dubos - The Wooing of Earth
Timothy Ferris - Galaxies
Carl Sagan - Cosmos
SCIENCE (PAPERBACK)
Winner:
Lewis Thomas, The Medusa and the Snail
Finalists:
Carl Sagan - Broca's Brain
Joseph Silk - The Big Bang
Walter Sullivan - Black Holes
TRANSLATION
Winner:
Francis Steegmuller, The Letters of Gustave Flaubert
John E. Woods, Arno Schmidt's Evening Edged in Gold
Finalists:
Guy Davenport – Archilochos, Sappho, Alkman: Three Lyric Poets of the Seventh Century B.C.
John Glad – Varlam Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales
Jean Milligan – Kao Ming’s The Lute