The National Book Critics Circle revealed the longlists for its annual nonfiction and poetry awards.
Scott Anderson made the nonfiction longlist for his Kirkus Prize–winning King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation, as did Greg Grandin for America, América: A New History of the New World, a Kirkus Prize finalist; Honorée Fanonne Jeffers for Misbehaving at the Crossroads: Essays & Writings; and Karen Hao for Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI.
Also nominated for the nonfiction prize were Michael Luo for Strangers in the Land: Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America; Barbara Demick for Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins; Brandy Schillace for The Intermediaries: A Weimar Story; Aatish Taseer for A Return to Self: Excursions in Exile; Michael Koresky for Sick and Dirty: Hollywood’s Gay Golden Age and the Making of Modern Queerness; and Gardiner Harris for No More Tears: The Secret History of Johnson & Johnson.
U.S. Poet Laureate Arthur Sze was longlisted in the poetry category for Into the Hush, alongside Kevin Young for Night Watch, Henri Cole for The Other Love, and Camille Ralphs for After You Were, I Am.
Also earning poetry nominations were Yuki Tanaka for Chronicle of Drifting, Rickey Laurentiis for Death of the First Idea, Hedgie Choi for Salvage, Gary Jackson for small lives, Natalie Shapero for Stay Dead, and Tolu Oloruntoba for Unravel.
The National Book Critics Circle Awards were first given out in 1976. The shortlists for the awards will be announced next month, with the winners revealed at a ceremony in New York on March 26, 2026.
Tom Beer is the editor-in-chief.
