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National Book Critics Circle Award - Biography
2009
- Cheever: A Life Winner
- Blake Bailey
- Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor
- Brad Gooch
- Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector
- Benjamin Moser
- Bitter Spring: A Life of Ignazio Silone
- Stanislao G. Pugliese
- Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line
- Martha A. Sandweiss
2008
The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul Winner- Patrick French
- Ida, A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching
- Paula J. Giddings
- The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family In An American Century
- Steve Coll
- The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
- Annette Gordon-Reed
- White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson & Thomas Wentworth Higginson
- Brenda Wineapple
2007
Stanley: The Impossible Life Of Africa's Greatest Explorer Winner- Tim Jeal
- Edith Wharton
- Hermione Lee
- Ralph Ellison
- Arnold Rampersad
- The Life Of Picasso: The Triumphant Years, 1917-1932
- John Richardson
- Thomas Hardy
- Claire Tomalin
2006
- The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon Winner
- Julie Phillips, James Tiptree, Jr
- The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher
- Debby Applegate
- At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-1968
- Taylor Branch
- Flaubert: A Biography
- Frederick Brown
- A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History's Greatest Traveler
- Jason Roberts,
2005
- American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer Winner
- Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
- Lee Miller: A Life
- Carolyn Burke
- Like a Fiery Elephant: The Story of B.S. Johnson
- Jonathan Coe
- Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
- Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Mark Twain: A Life
- Ron Powers
Before 2005, the award was for Biography/Autobiography.
2004
- De Kooning: An American Master Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan Winner
- Alexander Hamilton Ron Chernow
- Chronicles Vol. 1 Bob Dylan
- Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakepeare Stephen Greenblatt
- Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart John Guy
2003
- Krushchev: The Man and his era William Taubman Winner
- A Tragic Honesty: The Life and work of Richard Yates Blake Bailey
- The Life you save may be your own: An American pilgrimage Paul Elie
- Jonathan Edwards George Marsden
- Lucia Joyce: To Dance in the Wake Carol Loeb Shloss
2002
Charles Darwin: The Power of place vol. 2 Janet Browne Winner- Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson vol. 3 Robert A. Caro
- The Last American man Elizabeth Gilbert
- Benjamin Franklin Edmund S. Morgan
- Will you miss me when I’m gone? The Carter Family and their legacy in American Music Mark Zwonitzer with Charles Hirshberg
2001
- Boswell's Presumptuous Task: The Making of the life of Dr. Johnson Adam Sisman Winner
- Borrowed finery: A Memoir Paula Fox
- Positively 4th Street: The Lives and times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña and Richard Fariña David Hajdu
- Milking the moon: A Southerner's story of life on this planet Katherine Clark
- The Scarlet Professor: Newton Arvin: A Literary life shattered by scandal Barry Werth
- 2000 Hirohito and the making of modern Japan Herbert P. Bix
- 1999 The Hairstons: An American family in black and white Henry Wiencek
- 1998 A beautiful mind : a biography of John Forbes Nash, Jr., winner of the Nobel Prize in economics Sylvia Nasar
- 1997 Ernie Pyle's war: America's eyewitness to World War II James Tobin
- 1996 Angela's ashes Frank McCourt
- 1995 Savage art: A Biography of Jim Thompson Robert Polito
- 1994 Shot in the heart Mikal Gilmore
- 1993 Genet Edmund White
- 1992 Writing dangerously: Mary McCarthy and her world Carol Brightman
- 1991 Patrimony: A True story Philip Roth
- 1990 Means of ascent: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. II Robert A. Caro
