Fiction
- Tree of Smoke, by Denis Johnson (Winner!)
- Fieldwork, by Mischa Berlinski
- Varieties of Disturbance: Stories, by Lydia Davis
- Then We Came To The End, by Josua Ferris
- Like You’d Understand Anway, by Jim Shepard
Nonfiction
- Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA,, by Tim Weiner (Winner!)
- Brother, I’m Dying, by Edwidge Danticat
- God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everyting, by Christopher Hitchens
- Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution, by Woody Holton
- Ralph Ellison: A Biography, by Arnold Rampersad
Poetry
- Time and Materials: Poems 1997-2005, by Robert Haas (Winner!)
- Magnetic North, by Linda Gregerson
- The House On Boulevard St., by David Kirby
- Old Heart: Poems, by Stanley Plumly
- Messenger: New and Selected Poems 1976-2006, by Ellen Bryant Voigt
