2010 Pulitzer Prize for Biography Winner
2009 National Book Award Winner-Nonfiction

From the award-winning author of "Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War" comes the first full, authoritative look at the life of Cornelius Vanderbilt--the complex and combative man whose genius and force of will gave birth to modern capitalism. …More

BookPage Notable Title
2009 Pulitzer Prize for History Winner
2008 National Book Award- Winner Nonfiction

Praise for The Hemingses of Monticello: "Annette Gordon-Reed has broken a path into territory that has hitherto eluded historians: what happens to intimate human relations, those between lover and loved, parent and child, brother and sister, when one among them is enslaved to another. The result is not simply a fascinating story in itself, but a new perspective on how the humanity of slaves and a slave owner could adjust and survive in circumstances designed to obliterate it." -Edmund S. Morgan, author of American Slavery "Thomas Jefferson often described his slaves at Monticello as 'my family.' Annette Gordon-Reed has taken that description seriously. Surely more seriously than Jefferson ever intended! The result, the story of the Hemings family, is the most comprehensive account of one slave family ever written. It is not a pretty story, but it is poignant beyond belief. And it demonstrates conclusively that we must put aside Gone with the Wind forever and begin to study Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!" -Joseph J. Ellis, author of American Sphinx "This is not only a riveting history of a slave family on a grand scale, it is also a rarely seen portrait of the family in the Big House, with a remarkable account of the relationship of white and black families. This work catapults Gordon-Reed into the very first rank of historians of slavery." -John Hope Franklin, author of From Slavery to Freedom "From years of painstaking research, Annette Gordon-Reed has crafted a brave, compelling, and moving family saga about slavery and freedom. This work is a beautifully written, textured story about race, tragedy, and sometimes hope-America's story. If this country has a modern Shakespeare looking for material, Gordon-Reed has provided it." -David W. Blight, Yale University, author of A Slave No More "Annette Gordon-Reed's splendid achievement will have the last word on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, for one cannot imagine another historian matching her exhaustive research and interpretive balance." -David Levering Lewis, author of W. E. B. Du Bois "Annette Gordon-Reed is a prodigiously gifted historian and The Hemingses of Monticello is her masterpiece. Bringing the Hemings family out of the shadows and into vibrant life, Gordon-Reed restores them to their proper role at Thomas Jefferson's mountaintop home. Jefferson's Virginia-and Jefferson himself-will never look the same." -Peter Onuf, author of Jefferson's Empire: The Language of American Nationhood …More

National Book Critics Circle Best Recommended Nonfiction

Winner - 2007 National Book Award for Nonfiction
A history of the CIA by a New York Times reporter, focusing on the agency's failures and delusions of grandeur. …More

Winner - 2006 National Book Award for Nonfiction
BookPage Notable Title
Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones in the darkest years of the Depression. …More

Didion chronicles the experience of losing her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne, to a massive coronary, just weeks after the two of them watched as their only daughter was put into an induced coma to save her life. With honesty and passion, Didion explores this intensely personal yet universal experience. …More

Winner - 2004 National Book Award for Nonfiction
Boyle recounts the electrifying story of the sensational 1925 Ossian Sweet murder trial, an epic tale of one man trapped by the battles of his era's changing times, a city divided, and the advent of the civil rights struggle in Detroit. …More

Winner - 2003 National Book Award for Nonfiction
Narrated with the urgency of a confession, Waiting for Snow in Havana is both an ode to a paradise lost and an exorcism. More than that, it captures the terrible beauty of those times in readers lives when they are certain they have died--and then are somehow, miraculously, reborn. …More

Winner - 2003 ALA Non-Fiction Notable Selection
Winner - 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
Winner - 2002 National Book Award for Nonfiction
At the heart of this work is its unprecedented revelation of how legislative power works. Interweaving his narrative with a brilliantly astute and concise history of the Senate, Caro shows readers how political initiatives triumph or fail and how political genius functions. …More

Winner - 2002 ALA Non-Fiction Notable Selection
Winner - 2001 National Book Award for Nonfiction
With uncommon humanity, candor, wit, and erudition, award-winning author Solomon conducts a definitive narrative of incomparable range and resonance on his family secret of mental illness. Drawing on his own struggles with the illness and interviews with fellow sufferers, the author reveals as never before the complexities of the disease. …More

Winner - 2000 National Book Award for Nonfiction
This true-life adventure tells the incredible story of the wreck of the whaleship "Essex"--an event that served as the inspiration for Melville's "Moby-Dick." Illustrations. …More

Winner - 1999 National Book Award for Nonfiction
A foremost historian examines Japan in the immediate, shattering aftermath of World War II, giving readers the rich and turbulent interplay between West and East, the victor and the vanquished, in a way never before attempted. 75 illustrations. …More

Winner - 1998 National Book Award for Nonfiction
The moving, critically acclaimed story of one man's journey to find the descendants of the slaves who lived on his own family's plantation. "A work of breathtaking generosity and courage".--Pat Conroy. 48-page insert. …More