- Organizer
- American Library Association
- Why it counts
- Awarded annually since 2012 by the American Library Association (co-sponsored by Booklist and RUSA, funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York) for the best fiction and nonfiction books for adult readers published in the US in the previous year
- Held
- annual, late January announcement (day after the ALA Youth Media Awards); medals presented in June at ALA Annual
Reigning winners
Fiction · 2021
- James McBride — Deacon King Kong source 1 · source 2
Nonfiction · 2021
| Year | Fiction | Nonfiction |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | James McBride — Deacon King Kong | Rebecca Giggs |
| 2020 | Adam Higginbotham — Midnight in Chernobyl | |
| 2017 | Colson Whitehead — The Underground Railroad | Matthew Desmond — Evicted |
| 2016 | Viet Thanh Nguyen — The Sympathizer | |
| 2015 | Anthony Doerr — All the Light We Cannot See | Bryan Stevenson — Just Mercy |