A reading list, arranged by publication year

Best Books That Never Won a Pulitzer or Booker

1905 to 2025

From Ulysses and Mrs Dalloway to The Catcher in the Rye, these books offer another route through literary history. None of them ever won a Pulitzer or a Booker, or any of the other book prizes and categories cataloged on Fond Books, with one retrospective exception explained below. Some won other awards, or a different category of the same award: our Hugo and Nebula lists cover Best Novel only. The Nobel honors an author's body of work rather than a single book, so a Nobel laureate's book can belong here. The years below are publication years, not award years.

Fahrenheit 451 is our retrospective exception: it won the 1954 Retro Hugo for Best Novel, presented in 2004, fifty years after the award year. We keep it here to show how recognition can arrive decades later. See the official 1954 Retro Hugo results.

Books by year

Newest first. The year links to everything published or awarded that year.

Best Books That Never Won a Pulitzer or Booker, newest first
Published	Book and author
2025	The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
2025	Playworld by Adam Ross
2024	The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
2024	Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
2023	Yellowface by R. F. Kuang
2023	The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
2022	Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
2022	Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
2021	Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
2021	Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
2020	The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
2020	Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
2019	The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
2018	Normal People by Sally Rooney
2018	Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
2018	Educated by Tara Westover
2018	Circe by Madeline Miller
2017	Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
2017	Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
2016	The Nix by Nathan Hill
2016	A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
2016	The Girls by Emma Cline
2015	A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
2015	The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
2014	Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
2013	The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
2013	Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
2012	NW by Zadie Smith
2012	Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
2011	The Martian by Andy Weir
2011	Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
2010	Room by Emma Donoghue
2010	Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
2009	The Help by Kathryn Stockett
2005	The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
2008	The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
2007	The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
2007	A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
2005	The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
2006	The Blind Side by Michael Lewis
2005	The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
2005	Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
2004	The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
2004	Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
2003	The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
2003	The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
2002	The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
2002	Coraline by Neil Gaiman
2001	The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
2000	The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
2000	House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
1999	The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
1999	Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
1998	The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
1998	About a Boy by Nick Hornby
1997	Underworld by Don DeLillo
1997	Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
1996	Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
1996	Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
1995	High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
1995	Beach Music by Pat Conroy
1994	The Alienist by Caleb Carr
1994	Insomnia by Stephen King
1993	Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
1993	The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
1992	The Secret History by Donna Tartt
1992	Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
1991	Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
1991	American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
1990	The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
1990	Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
1989	The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
1989	A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
1988	The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
1988	Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
1987	The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
1987	Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
1986	The Sportswriter by Richard Ford
1986	It by Stephen King
1985	Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
1984	The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
1984	Money by Martin Amis
1983	The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett
1983	Pet Sematary by Stephen King
1982	The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
1982	Different Seasons by Stephen King
1981	The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving
1981	Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
1980	The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
1980	Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
1979	The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
1979	Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
1978	The Stand by Stephen King
1978	The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
1977	The Shining by Stephen King
1977	Dispatches by Michael Herr
1976	The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
1976	Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
1975	The Female Man by Joanna Russ
1975	'Salem's Lot by Stephen King
1974	Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré
1974	Carrie by Stephen King
1973	The Princess Bride by William Goldman
1973	Sula by Toni Morrison
1972	Surfacing by Margaret Atwood
1972	Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
1971	The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty
1971	Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
1970	The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
1970	Deliverance by James Dickey
1969	The Godfather by Mario Puzo
1969	Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
1968	Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
1968	2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
1967	The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
1967	The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
1966	The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
1966	In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
1965	The Magus by John Fowles
1965	Stoner by John Williams
1964	Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr.
1964	Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
1963	The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
1963	Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
1962	One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
1962	A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
1961	Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
1961	Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
1961	Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
1960	The Country Girls by Edna O'Brien
1960	Rabbit, Run by John Updike
1959	Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
1959	A Separate Peace by John Knowles
1958	Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
1958	The Once and Future King by T. H. White
1958	Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
1957	On the Road by Jack Kerouac
1957	Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
1956	Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg
1956	Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
1955	The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
1955	The Quiet American by Graham Greene
1955	Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
1954	Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas
1954	The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
1953	Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
1953	Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
1952	East of Eden by John Steinbeck
1952	Charlotte's Web by E. B. White
1951	The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
1951	The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
1950	The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
1950	I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
1949	The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
1949	Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
1948	The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
1948	I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
1947	Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
1947	The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
1946	Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
1946	The Street by Ann Petry
1945	Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
1945	Animal Farm by George Orwell
1944	The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
1944	Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
1943	The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
1943	The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
1942	The Stranger by Albert Camus
1942	The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis
1941	The Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald
1941	Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf
1940	The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
1940	Native Son by Richard Wright
1940	For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
1939	The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West
1939	The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
1939	And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
1938	Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
1938	Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
1937	Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
1937	The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
1937	Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
1936	Nightwood by Djuna Barnes
1936	Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
1935	Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck
1935	Mr Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood
1934	Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
1934	Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
1933	Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain
1933	Lost Horizon by James Hilton
1932	Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline
1932	Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
1931	The Waves by Virginia Woolf
1931	Sanctuary by William Faulkner
1930	The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
1930	As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
1929	The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
1929	Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
1929	All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
1929	A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
1928	Orlando by Virginia Woolf
1928	Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
1927	To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
1927	Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
1926	Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne
1926	The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
1925	The Trial by Franz Kafka
1925	The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
1925	Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
1924	The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
1924	A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
1923	The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
1923	Cane by Jean Toomer
1922	Ulysses by James Joyce
1922	Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
1921	Three Soldiers by John Dos Passos
1921	Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley
1920	This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
1920	Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
1919	Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
1919	The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham
1918	The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
1918	My Ántonia by Willa Cather
1915	The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
1914	Dubliners by James Joyce
1911	The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
1911	Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
1910	Howards End by E. M. Forster
1908	The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
1908	Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
1906	The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
1905	The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton