# The National Book Award for Fiction winners of the 2010s

The ten books that won the US National Book Award for Fiction from 2010 to 2019.

- 424 votes · 10 items
- Aug 23, 2025 · Amanda Hill
- https://even.best/en/l/718/the-national-book-award-for-fiction-winners-of-the-2010s

## Top 10

1. **Lord of Misrule — Jaimy Gordon** (54 · ▲55 ▼1) — 2010. Horse racing at a run-down West Virginia track.
2. **Salvage the Bones — Jesmyn Ward** (47 · ▲50 ▼3) — 2011. A Mississippi family in the days before Hurricane Katrina.
3. **The Good Lord Bird — James McBride** (35 · ▲41 ▼6) — 2013. The abolitionist John Brown seen through the eyes of a boy disguised as a girl.
4. **Redeployment — Phil Klay** (34 · ▲38 ▼4) — 2014. Stories of US soldiers in and after Iraq.
5. **The Round House — Louise Erdrich** (33 · ▲38 ▼5) — 2012. A boy on an Ojibwe reservation seeks justice for his mother.
6. **Sing, Unburied, Sing — Jesmyn Ward** (26 · ▲32 ▼6) — 2017. Ward's second win, a road trip haunted by ghosts.
7. **The Friend — Sigrid Nunez** (24 · ▲29 ▼5) — 2018. A writer inherits her late mentor's Great Dane.
8. **Trust Exercise — Susan Choi** (23 · ▲29 ▼6) — 2019. A performing-arts high school and the stories told about it.
9. **The Underground Railroad — Colson Whitehead** (20 · ▲30 ▼10) — 2016. Cora's escape on a literal underground railway.
10. **Fortune Smiles — Adam Johnson** (20 · ▲28 ▼8) — 2015. Six stories, from North Korean defectors to a Stasi prison warden.

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.