Believer Book Award is an American literary award presented yearly by The Believer magazine to novels and story collections the magazine's editors thought were the "strongest and most under-appreciated" of the year. A shortlist and longlist are announced, along with reader's favorites, then a final winner is selected by the magazine's editors. The inaugural award was in 2005 for books published in 2004.
Winners and shortlist
The year below denotes when the books were published; the award is announced the following year. Thus below, the inaugural 2004 books were announced in early to mid-2005.
Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, and indicated with a double dagger ()
The shortlist was announced in February 2005. The winner was announced in March 2005.
Sam Lipsyte, Home Land
Michelle de Kretser, The Hamilton Case
Lucy Ellmann, Dot in the Universe
Selah Saterstrom, The Pink Institution
Francisco Goldman, The Divine Husband
The shortlist was announced in February 2006. The winner was announced in March 2006.
Sesshu Foster, Atomik Aztex
Trinie Dalton, Wide Eyed
Aimee Bender, Willful Creatures
John Wray, Canaan's Tongue
Tom Bissell, God Lives in St. Petersburg
The winner, and reader survey of best books, was announced in May 2007.
Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Reader and writer survey of best books.
The shortlist was announced in May 2008. The winner was announced in June 2008.
Tom McCarthy, Remainder
Jesse Ball, Samedi the Deafness
Gerard Donovan, Sunless
Steve Erickson, Zeroville
Elizabeth Hand, Generation Loss
Alain Mabanckou, African Psycho
Miranda Mellis, The Revisionist
Lydie Salvayre, The Power of Flies
Selah Saterstrom, The Meat and Spirit Plan
Joe Weisberg, An Ordinary Spy
The shortlist was announced in February 2009. The winner was announced in March 2009.
Emily Perkins, Novel About My Wife
Samantha Hunt, The Invention of Everything Else
Mary Ruefle, The Most of It
John Olson, Souls of Wind
Jim Krusoe, Girl Factory
Tod Wodicka, All Shall Be Well; And All Shall Be Well; and All Manner of Things Shall Be Well
Toby Olson, Tampico
Shannon Burke, Black Flies
The shortlist was announced in March 2010. The winner was announced in May 2010.
Percival Everett, I Am Not Sidney Poitier
Christopher Miller, The Cardboard Universe: A Guide to the World of Phoebus K. Dank
Mary Robison, One D.O.A., One on the Way
Blake Butler, Scorch Atlas
Padgett Powell, The Interrogative Mood
The shortlist was announced in March 2011. The winner was announced in May 2011.
James Hynes, Next
Danielle Dutton, Sprawl
Kira Henehan, Orion You Came and You Took All My Marbles
Grace Krilanovich, The Orange Eats Creeps
Paul Murray, Skippy Dies
The shortlist was announced in March 2012. The winner was announced in May 2012.
Ben Lerner, Leaving the Atocha Station
Jesse Ball, The Curfew
Helen DeWitt, Lightning Rods
Lars Iyer, Spurious
Michelle Latiolais, Widow
The shortlist was announced in March 2013. The winner was announced in April 2013.
Tamara Faith Berger, Maidenhead
Barbara Browning, I'm Trying to Reach You
Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle (Book One)
Jim Krusoe, Parsifal
Sergio De La Pava, A Naked Singularity
The shortlist was announced in March 2014. The winner was announced in April 2014.
Rebecca Lee, Bobcat and Other Stories
Kiese Laymon, Long Division
Fiona Maazel, Woke Up Lonely
Keith Ridgway, Hawthorn and Child
Bennett Sims, A Questionable Shape
The shortlist was announced in March 2015. The winner was announced in the Fall 2015 issue.
Ottessa Moshfegh, McGlue
Diane Cook, Man V. Nature
Valeria Luiselli, Faces in the Crowd
Elizabeth McCracken, Thunderstruck and Other Stories
Antoine Volodine, Writers
