| Year | Author | Title | 
| 1998[4] | David Bodanis | The Secret Family: Twenty-four Hours inside the Mysterious Worlds of Our Minds and Bodies | 
| Rick Bragg | All Over but the Shoutin' | 
| Rebecca Carroll | Sugar in the Raw: Voices of Young Black Girls in America | 
| Karin Cook | What Girls Learn | 
| Pete Hamill | Snow in August | 
| Sebastian Junger | The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men against the Sea | 
| Jon Krakauer | Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster | 
| Velma Maia Thomas | Lest We Forget: The Passage from Africa to Slavery and Emancipation | 
| Dawn Turner Trice | Only Twice I've Wished for Heaven | 
| Connie Willis | To Say Nothing of the Dog; or, How We Found the Bishop's Bird Stump at Last | 
| 1999[5] | Caroline Alexander | The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition | 
| James Finney Boylan | Getting In | 
| Andie Dominick | Needles | 
| John Gilstrap | At All Costs | 
| Jesse Lee Kercheval | Space | 
| Steve Kluger | Last Days of Summer | 
| Robert Silverberg | Legends: Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy | 
| Kim Stanley Robinson | Antarctica | 
| Esmeralda Santiago | Almost a Woman | 
| Danzy Senna | Caucasia | 
| 2000[6] | David Breashears | High Exposure: An Enduring Passion for Everest and Unforgiving Places | 
| Orson Scott Card | Ender's Shadow | 
| Breena Clarke | River, Cross My Heart | 
| Esmé Raji Codell | Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher's First Year | 
| Jonathon Scott Fuqua | The Reappearance of Sam Webber | 
| Neil Gaiman | Stardust | 
| Linda Greenlaw | The Hungry Ocean: A Swordboat Captain's Journey | 
| Elva Trevino Hart | Barefoot Heart: Stories of a Migrant Child | 
| Kent Haruf | Plainsong | 
| Connie Porter | Imani All Mine | 
| 2001[7] | Darin Strauss | Chang & Eng | 
| Larry Colton | Counting Coup | 
| Juliet Marillier | Daughter of the Forest | 
| Alan Watt | Diamond Dogs | 
| James Bradley and Ron Powers | Flags of Our Fathers | 
| Tracy Chevalier | Girl with a Pearl Earring | 
| Nathaniel Philbrick | In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex | 
| Ben Sherwood | The Man Who Ate the 747 | 
| Gillian Bradshaw | The Sand Reckoner | 
| June Jordan | Soldier: A Poet's Childhood | 
| 2002[8] | Geraldine Brooks | Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague | 
| William Doyle | An American Insurrection: The Battle of Oxford, Mississippi | 
| David Anthony Durham | Gabriel's Story | 
| Barbara Ehrenreich | Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in Boom-Time America | 
| Leif Enger | Peace Like a River | 
| Kobie Kruger | The Wilderness Family: At Home with Africa's Wildlife | 
| Donna Morrissey | Kit's Law | 
| Mel Odom | The Rover | 
| Vineeta Vijayaraghavan | Motherland | 
| Rebecca Walker | Black, White, and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self | 
| 2003[9] | Lynda Barry | One! Hundred! Demons! | 
| Pat Conroy | My Losing Season | 
| Timothy Ferris | Seeing in the Dark: How Backyard Stargazers Are Probing Deep Space and Guarding Earth from Interplanetary Peril | 
| Jasper Fforde | The Eyre Affair | 
| Mary Lawson | Crow Lake | 
| Brian Malloy | The Year of Ice | 
| Julie Otsuka | When the Emperor Was Divine | 
| Ann Packer | The Dive from Clausen's Pier | 
| Martha Southgate | The Fall of Rome | 
| Joseph Weisberg | 10th Grade | 
| 2004[10] | Amanda Davis | Wonder When You'll Miss Me | 
| Mark Haddon | The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time | 
| Khaled Hosseini | The Kite Runner | 
| Audrey Niffenegger | The Time Traveler's Wife | 
| ZZ Packer | Drinking Coffee Elsewhere | 
| Mary Roach | Stiff | 
| Mark Salzman | True Notebooks | 
| Marjane Satrapi | Persepolis | 
| Jacqueline Winspear | Maisie Dobbs | 
| Bart Yates | Leave Myself Behind | 
| 2005[11] | Steve Almond | Candyfreak: A Journey through the Chocolate Underbelly of America | 
| Lynne Cox | Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer | 
| Brendan Halpin | Donorboy | 
| Robert Kurson | Shadow Divers | 
| Kent Meyers | Work of Wolves | 
| Ann Patchett | Truth & Beauty: A Friendship | 
| Jodi Picoult | My Sister's Keeper | 
| Kit Reed | Thinner Than Thou | 
| Jim Shepard | Project X | 
| Robert Sullivan | Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants | 
| 2006[12] | Judy Fong Bates | Midnight at the Dragon Café | 
| Kalisha Buckhanon | Upstate | 
| Neil Gaiman | Anansi Boys | 
| Gregory Galloway | As Simple As Snow | 
| Kazuo Ishiguro | Never Let Me Go | 
| A. Lee Martinez | Gil's All Fright Diner | 
| Susan Palwick | The Necessary Beggar | 
| Nancy Rawles | My Jim | 
| Julia Scheeres | Jesus Land: A Memoir | 
| Jeannette Walls | The Glass Castle: A Memoir | 
| 2007[13] | John Connolly | The Book of Lost Things | 
| Ivan Doig | The Whistling Season | 
| Michael D'Orso | Eagle Blue: A Team, A Tribe, and A High School Basketball Season in Arctic Alaska | 
| Sara Gruen | Water for Elephants | 
| Pamela Carter Joern | Floor of the Sky | 
| John Hamamura | Color of the Sea | 
| Michael Lewis | The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game | 
| David Mitchell | Black Swan Green | 
| Ron Rash | The World Made Straight | 
| Diane Setterfield | The Thirteenth Tale | 
| 2008[14] | Matthew Polly | American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in the New China | 
| Matt Ruff | Bad Monkeys | 
| Jeff Lemire | Essex County Volume 1: Tales from the Farm | 
| Conn Iggulden | Genghis: Birth of an Empire | 
| Aryn Kyle | The God of Animals | 
| Ishmael Beah | A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier | 
| Lloyd Jones | Mister Pip | 
| Patrick Rothfuss | The Name of the Wind | 
| Thomas Maltman | The Night Birds | 
| Lisa Lutz | The Spellman Files | 
| 2009[15] | David Benioff | City of Thieves | 
| Michael Swanwick | The Dragons of Babel | 
| Zoë Ferraris | Finding Nouf | 
| Hannah Tinti | The Good Thief | 
| Stephen King | Just After Sunset: Stories | 
| Hillary Jordan | Mudbound | 
| Todd Tucker | Over and Under | 
| Stephen G. Bloom | The Oxford Project | 
| Toby Barlow | Sharp Teeth | 
| Theresa Rebeck | Three Girls and Their Brother | 
| 2010[16] | William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer | The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope | 
| Meg Rosoff | The Bride's Farewell | 
| Ron Currie Jr. | Everything Matters! | 
| David Finkel | The Good Soldiers | 
| Diana Welch and Liz Welch | The Kids Are All Right: A Memoir | 
| Lev Grossman | The Magicians | 
| Peter Rock | My Abandonment | 
| Gail Carriger | Soulless: An Alexia Tarabotti Novel | 
| David Small | Stitches: A Memoir | 
| Kevin Wilson | Tunneling to the Center of the Earth | 
| 2011[17] | DC Pierson | The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To | 
| Liz Murray | Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard | 
| Jean Kwok | Girl in Translation | 
| Peter Bognanni | The House of Tomorrow | 
| Steve Hamilton | The Lock Artist | 
| Aimee Bender | The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake | 
| Matt Haig | The Radleys | 
| Alden Bell | The Reapers Are the Angels | 
| Emma Donoghue | Room | 
| Helen Grant | The Vanishing of Katharina Linden | 
| 2012[18] | Rachel DeWoskin | Big Girl Small | 
| Jo Ann Beard | In Zanesville | 
| David Levithan | The Lover's Dictionary | 
| Brooke Hauser | The New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens | 
| Erin Morgenstern | The Night Circus | 
| Ernest Cline | Ready Player One | 
| Daniel H. Wilson | Robopocalypse | 
| Jesmyn Ward | Salvage the Bones | 
| Caroline Preston | The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt: A Novel in Pictures | 
| Roland Merullo | The Talk-Funny Girl | 
| 2013[19] | David Zimmerman | Caring Is Creepy | 
| Tupelo Hassman | Girlchild | 
| Richard Ross | Juvenile in Justice | 
| Robin Sloan | Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore | 
| Derf Backderf | My Friend Dahmer | 
| Chris Ballard | One Shot at Forever | 
| Julianna Baggott | Pure | 
| Louise Erdrich | The Round House | 
| Carol Rifka Brunt | Tell the Wolves I'm Home | 
| Maria Semple | Where'd You Go, Bernadette? | 
| 2014[20] | Mark Slouka | Brewster | 
| Lisa O'Donnell | The Death of Bees | 
| Abigail Tarttelin | Golden Boy | 
| John Searles | Help for the Haunted | 
| Max Barry | Lexicon | 
| Wesley Chu | Lives of Tao | 
| Koren Zailckas | Mother, Mother | 
| Lucy Knisley | Relish: My Life in the Kitchen | 
| Katja Millay | The Sea of Tranquility | 
| Gavin Extence | The Universe Versus Alex Woods | 
| 2015[21] | Anthony Doerr | All the Light We Cannot See | 
| Kate Racculia | Bellweather Rhapsody | 
| James A. Levine | Bingo's Run | 
| Kanae Minato | Confessions | 
| Celeste Ng | Everything I Never Told You | 
| John Scalzi | Lock In | 
| Andy Weir | The Martian | 
| Zak Ebrahim | The Terrorist's Son: A Story of Choice | 
| Michael Koryta | Those Who Wish Me Dead | 
| John Darnielle | Wolf in White Van | 
| 2016[22] | Ryan Gattis | All Involved | 
| Ta-Nehisi Coates | Between the World and Me | 
| Camille DeAngelis | Bones & All | 
| David Wong | Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits | 
| Sara Nović | Girl at War | 
| Joe Abercrombie | Half the World | 
| Brandon Stanton | Humans of New York: Stories | 
| Liz Suburbia | Sacred Heart | 
| Dan-el Padilla Peralta | Undocumented: A Dominican Boy's Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League | 
| Keija Parssinen | The Unraveling of Mercy Louis | 
| 2017[23] | Sarah Beth Durst | The Queen of Blood | 
| Manuel Gonzales | The Regional Office Is Under Attack! | 
| Diane Guerrero with Michelle Burford | In the Country We Love: My Family Divided | 
| Hannah Hart | Buffering: Unshared Tales of a Life Fully Loaded | 
| Holly Jennings | Arena | 
| Seanan McGuire | Every Heart a Doorway | 
| Ryan North | Romeo and/or Juliet: A Choosable-Path Adventure | 
| Rob Rufus | Die Young with Me: A Memoir | 
| Matt Simon | The Wasp that Brainwashed the Caterpillar | 
| Scott Stambach | The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko | 
| 2018[24] | Martha Wells | All Systems Red | 
| Daniel H. Wilson | The Clockwork Dynasty | 
| Seanan McGuire | Down Among the Sticks and Bones | 
| Eve Ewing | Electric Arches | 
| Melissa Fleming | A Hope More Powerful than the Sea | 
| Joey Comeau | Malagash | 
| Jeff Lemire | Roughneck | 
| Jordan Harper | She Rides Shotgun | 
| Tasha Kavanagh | Things We Have in Common | 
| Kat Howard | An Unkindness of Magicians | 
| 2019[25] | P. Djèlí Clark | The Black God's Drums | 
| Meghan MacLean Weir | The Book of Essie | 
| Madeline Miller | Circe | 
| Tara Westover | Educated: A Memoir | 
| Clemantine Wamariya and Elizabeth Weil | The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After | 
| Sam Graham-Felsen | Green | 
| David Small | Home After Dark | 
| N. K. Jemisin | How Long 'til Black Future Month? | 
| Jonathan Evison | Lawn Boy | 
| Naomi Novik | Spinning Silver | 
| 2020[26] | C.A. Fletcher | A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World | 
| Temi Oh | Do You Dream of Terra-Two? | 
| Angie Cruz | Dominicana | 
| Maia Kobabe | Gender Queer: A Memoir | 
| Tegan and Sara | High School | 
| AJ Dungo | In Waves | 
| Seanan McGuire | Middlegame | 
| Colson Whitehead | The Nickel Boys | 
| Casey McQuiston | Red, White & Royal Blue | 
| Lisa Lutz | The Swallows | 
| 2021[27] | Rebecca Roanhorse | Black Sun | 
| TJ Klune | The House in the Cerulean Sea | 
| Colin O'Brady | The Impossible First: From Fire to Ice - Crossing Antarctica Alone | 
| Derf Backderf | Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio | 
| Gretchen Anthony | The Kids Are Gonna Ask | 
| Stephen Graham Jones | The Only Good Indians | 
| Emily M. Danforth | Plain Bad Heroines | 
| Tochi Onyebuchi | Riot Baby | 
| Allie Brosh | Solutions and Other Problems | 
| Quan Barry | We Ride Upon Sticks: A Novel | 
| 2022[28] | Ryka Aoki | Light from Uncommon Stars | 
| Marianne Cronin | The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot | 
| Genevieve Gornichec | The Witch's Heart | 
| T. L. Huchu | The Library of the Dead | 
| Will Leitch | How Lucky | 
| Everina Maxwell | Winter's Orbit | 
| Kate Quinn | The Rose Code | 
| Kareem Rosser | Crossing the Line: A Fearless Team of Brothers and the Sport That Changed Their Lives Forever | 
| Rachel Smythe | Lore Olympus, Vol. 1 | 
| Heather Walter | Malice | 
| 2023[29] | Sophie Irwin | A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting | 
| R. F. Kuang | Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution | 
| Jennette McCurdy | I'm Glad My Mom Died | 
| Jarrett Melendez, illus. by Danica Brine | Chef's Kiss | 
| Sara Nović | True Biz | 
| Jamila Rowser, illus. by Robyn Smith | Wash Day Diaries | 
| John Scalzi | The Kaiju Preservation Society | 
| James Spooner | The High Desert: Black. Punk. Nowhere. | 
| Sue Lynn Tan | Daughter of the Moon Goddess | 
| Javier Zamora | Solito: A Memoir | 
| 2024[30] | Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah | Chain-Gang All-Stars | 
| Darrin Bell | The Talk | 
| Jessica George | Maame | 
| Jessica Johns | Bad Cree | 
| Khashayar J. Khabushani | I Will Greet the Sun Again | 
| Daniel Kraus | Whalefall | 
| Oksana Masters | The Hard Parts: A Memoir of Courage and Triumph | 
| John Scalzi | Starter Villain | 
| Jade Song | Chlorine | 
| Rebecca Yarros | Fourth Wing | 
| 2025[31] | Melissa Blake | Beautiful People: My Thirteen Truths About Disability | 
| David F. Walker, illus. by Marcus Kwame Anderson | Big Jim and the White Boy: An American Classic Reimagined | 
| Eve J. Chung | Daughters of Shandong | 
| P. Djèlí Clark | The Dead Cat Tail Assassins | 
| Kristen Perrin | How to Solve Your Own Murder | 
| Lara Pickle | I Feel Awful, Thanks | 
| Stephen Graham Jones | I Was a Teenage Slasher | 
| Rosie Hewlett | The Witch of Colchis | 
| Henry H. Neff | The Witchstone | 
| Marjane Satrapi, trans. by Una Dimitrijević | Woman, Life, Freedom |