← All curators

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction's Reading List

Awarded annually since 1962 for a distinguished and appropriately documented book of nonfiction by an American author that is not eligible for consideration in any other category. Each year names one winner and two finalists. This list collects winners and finalists from 2001 onward.

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2025 (2025)

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2025 — winner and finalists/shortlist.

Source: www.pulitzer.org

To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement

Benjamin Nathans · 2024 · Buy on Amazon

"Winner"

Until I Find You: Disappeared Children and Coercive Adoptions in Guatemala

Rachel Nolan · 2024 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

I Am on the Hit List: A Journalist's Murder and the Rise of Autocracy in India

Rollo Romig · 2024 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2024 (2024)

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2024 — winner and finalists/shortlist.

Source: www.pulitzer.org

A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy

Nathan Thrall · 2023 · Buy on Amazon

"Winner"

Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

Siddharth Kara · 2023 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World

John Vaillant · 2023 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2023 (2023)

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2023 — winner and finalists/shortlist.

Source: www.pulitzer.org

His Name Is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice

Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa · 2022 · Buy on Amazon

"Winner"

Sounds Wild and Broken: Sonic Marvels, Evolution's Creativity, and the Crisis of Sensory Extinction

David George Haskell · 2022 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution That Made China Modern

Jing Tsu · 2022 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation

Linda Villarosa · 2022 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2022 (2022)

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2022 — winner and finalists/shortlist.

Source: www.pulitzer.org

Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City

Andrea Elliott · 2021 · Buy on Amazon

"Winner"

Home, Land, Security: Deradicalization and the Journey Back from Extremism

Carla Power · 2021 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

The Family Roe: An American Story

Joshua Prager · 2021 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2021 (2021)

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2021 — winner and finalists/shortlist.

Source: www.pulitzer.org

Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy

David Zucchino · 2020 · Buy on Amazon

"Winner"

Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning

Cathy Park Hong · 2020 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman's Search for Justice in Indian Country

Sierra Crane Murdoch · 2020 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2020 (2020)

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2020 — winner and finalists/shortlist.

Source: www.pulitzer.org

The Undying: Pain, Vulnerability, Mortality, Medicine, Art, Time, Dreams, Data, Exhaustion, Cancer, and Care

Anne Boyer · 2019 · Buy on Amazon

"Winner"

The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America

Greg Grandin · 2019 · Buy on Amazon

"Winner"

Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life

Louise Aronson · 2019 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Solitary

Albert Woodfox with Leslie George · 2019 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2019 (2019)

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2019 — winner and finalists/shortlist.

Source: www.pulitzer.org

Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America

Eliza Griswold · 2018 · Buy on Amazon

"Winner"

Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore

Elizabeth Rush · 2018 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

In a Day's Work: The Fight to End Sexual Violence Against America's Most Vulnerable Workers

Bernice Yeung · 2018 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2018 (2018)

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2018 — winner and finalists/shortlist.

Source: www.pulitzer.org

Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America

James Forman Jr. · 2017 · Buy on Amazon

"Winner"

Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World

Suzy Hansen · 2017 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World - and Us

Richard O. Prum · 2017 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2017 (2017)

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2017 — winner and finalists/shortlist.

Source: www.pulitzer.org

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

Matthew Desmond · 2016 · Buy on Amazon

"Winner"

In a Different Key: The Story of Autism

John Donvan and Caren Zucker · 2016 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

The Politics of Mourning: Death and Honor in Arlington National Cemetery

Micki McElya · 2016 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2016 (2016)

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2016 — winner and finalists/shortlist.

Source: www.pulitzer.org

Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS

Joby Warrick · 2015 · Buy on Amazon

"Winner"

Between the World and Me

Ta-Nehisi Coates · 2015 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran

Carla Power · 2015 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2015 (2015)

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2015 — winner and finalists/shortlist.

Source: www.pulitzer.org

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

Elizabeth Kolbert · 2014 · Buy on Amazon

"Winner"

No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes

Anand Gopal · 2014 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China

Evan Osnos · 2014 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2014 (2014)

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2014 — winner and finalists/shortlist.

Source: www.pulitzer.org

Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation

Dan Fagin · 2013 · Buy on Amazon

"Winner"

The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide

Gary J. Bass · 2013 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War

Fred Kaplan · 2013 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2013 (2013)

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2013 — winner and finalists/shortlist.

Source: www.pulitzer.org

Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America

Gilbert King · 2012 · Buy on Amazon

"Winner"

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity

Katherine Boo · 2012 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature

David George Haskell · 2012 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2012 (2012)

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2012 — winner and finalists/shortlist.

Source: www.pulitzer.org

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

Stephen Greenblatt · 2011 · Buy on Amazon

"Winner"

One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing

Diane Ackerman · 2011 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men

Mara Hvistendahl · 2011 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2011 (2011)

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2011 — winner and finalists/shortlist.

Source: www.pulitzer.org

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

Siddhartha Mukherjee · 2010 · Buy on Amazon

"Winner"

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

Nicholas Carr · 2010 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History

S. C. Gwynne · 2010 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2010 (2010)

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2010 — winner and finalists/shortlist.

Source: www.pulitzer.org

The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy

David E. Hoffman · 2009 · Buy on Amazon

"Winner"

How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities

John Cassidy · 2009 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

The Evolution of God

Robert Wright · 2009 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2009 (2009)

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2009 — winner and finalists/shortlist.

Source: www.pulitzer.org

Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II

Douglas A. Blackmon · 2008 · Buy on Amazon

"Winner"

Gandhi and Churchill: The Epic Rivalry That Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age

Arthur Herman · 2008 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

The Bitter Road to Freedom: A New History of the Liberation of Europe

William I. Hitchcock · 2008 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2008 (2008)

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2008 — winner and finalists/shortlist.

Source: www.pulitzer.org

The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945

Saul Friedländer · 2007 · Buy on Amazon

"Winner"

The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product That Defined America

Allan M. Brandt · 2007 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century

Alex Ross · 2007 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2007 (2007)

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2007 — winner and finalists/shortlist.

Source: www.pulitzer.org

The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

Lawrence Wright · 2006 · Buy on Amazon

"Winner"

Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness

Pete Earley · 2006 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq

Thomas E. Ricks · 2006 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2006 (2006)

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2006 — winner and finalists/shortlist.

Source: www.pulitzer.org

Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya

Caroline Elkins · 2005 · Buy on Amazon

"Winner"

Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945

Tony Judt · 2005 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq

George Packer · 2005 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2005 (2005)

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2005 — winner and finalists/shortlist.

Source: www.pulitzer.org

Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001

Steve Coll · 2004 · Buy on Amazon

"Winner"

Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found

Suketu Mehta · 2004 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

The Devil's Highway: A True Story

Luis Alberto Urrea · 2004 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2004 (2004)

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2004 — winner and finalists/shortlist.

Source: www.pulitzer.org

Gulag: A History

Anne Applebaum · 2003 · Buy on Amazon

"Winner"

Rembrandt's Jews

Steven Nadler · 2003 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America's Military

Dana Priest · 2003 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2003 (2003)

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2003 — winner and finalists/shortlist.

Source: www.pulitzer.org

A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide

Samantha Power · 2002 · Buy on Amazon

"Winner"

The Anthropology of Turquoise: Meditations on Landscape, Art, and Spirit

Ellen Meloy · 2002 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

Steven Pinker · 2002 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2002 (2002)

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2002 — winner and finalists/shortlist.

Source: www.pulitzer.org

Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution

Diane McWhorter · 2001 · Buy on Amazon

"Winner"

War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals

David Halberstam · 2001 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Andrew Solomon · 2001 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2001 (2001)

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2001 — winner and finalists/shortlist.

Source: www.pulitzer.org

Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan

Herbert P. Bix · 2000 · Buy on Amazon

"Winner"

Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing

Ted Conover · 2000 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Dave Eggers · 2000 · Buy on Amazon

"Finalist"

Suggest an update?