Fiction

Bonnie Jo Campbell’s American Salvage

Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin (Winner)

Daniyal Mueenuddin’s In Other Rooms, Other Wonders

Jayne Anne Phillips’s Lark and Termite

Marcel Theroux’s Far North

Nonfiction

David M. Carroll’s Following the Water: A Hydromancer’s Notebook
Sean B. Carroll’s Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species 

Greg Grandin’s Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City
Adrienne Mayor’s The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy

T. J. Stiles’ The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (Winner)

Poetry

Rae Armantrout’s Versed

Ann Lauterbach’s Or to Begin Again

Carl Phillips’ Speak Low

Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon’s Open Interval

Keith Waldrop’s Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy (Winner)

Young People’s Literature

Deborah Heiligman’s Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith

Phillip Hoose’s Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice (Winner)

David Small’s Stitches

Laini Taylor’s Lips Touch: Three Times

Rita Williams-Garcia’s Jumped

Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters

Gore Vidal

Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community

Dave Eggers