Book of the Year: 1944 to 2006

Submitted by Schmerguls on Mon, 07/31/2006 - 07:28
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  1. Blessed Are the Meek A Novel about St. Francis of Assisi, by Zofia Kossak (read 10 Aug 1944) (Book of the Year)
  2. Golden Fleece: The Story of Franz Joseph & Elizabeth of Austria, by Bertita Harding (read 24 June 1945) (Book of the Year)
  3. The World, the Flesh, and Father Smith, by Bruce Marshall (read 2 Feb 1946) (Book of the Year)
  4. Kristin Lavransdatter The Bridal Wreath - The Mistress of Husaby - The Cross, by Sigrid Undset (read 24 Apr 1947) (Book of the Year)
  5. Look Homeward, Angel: A Story of the Buried Life, by Thomas Wolfe (read 7 June 1948) (Book of the Year)
  6. U.S.A. 1.The 42nd Parallel 2.Nineteen Nineteen 3.The Big Money by John Dos Passos (read 17 Aug 1949) (Book of the Year)
  7. Point Counter Point, by Aldous Huxley (read 12 July 1950) (Book of the Year)
  8. In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians, by Ambrose Bierce (read 23 Apr 1951) (Book of the Year)
  9. The End of the Affair, by Graham Greene (read 11 Nov 1952) (Book of the Year)
  10. The Ox-Bow Incident, by Walter Von Tilburg Clark (read 24 Mar 1953) (Book of the Year)
  11. The Caine Mutiny: A Novel of World War II, by Herman Wouk (read 31 Jan 1954) (Book of the Year) (Pulitzer Fiction prize for 1952)
  12. The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene (read 30 Jan 1955) (Book of the Year)
  13. Independent People: An Epic, by Halldor Laxness translated from the Icelandic by J. A. Thompson (read 29 Apr 1956) (Book of the Year)
  14. I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), by Alessandro Manzoni (read 5 Dec 1957) (Book of the Year)
  15. All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren (read 21 Sept 1958) (Book of the Year) (Pulitzer Fiction prize for 1947)
  16. The Personal History of David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens (read 14 June 1959) (Book of the Year)
  17. Advise and Consent, by Allen Drury (read 9 June 1960) (Book of the Year) (Pulitzer Fiction prize 1960)
  18. The Great Crisis in American Catholic History 1895-1900, by Thomas T. McAvoy, C.S.C. (read 30 Sep 1961) (Book of the Year)
  19. The Guns of August, by Barbara W. Tuchman (read 31 May 1962) (Book of the Year) (Pulitzer Nonfiction prize in 1963)
  20. The Thibaults, by Roger Martin Du Gard translated by Stuart Gilbert (read 7 Feb 1963) (Book of the Year)
  21. The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916, by Alistair Horne (read 7 Sep 1964) (Book of the Year)
  22. In Flanders Fields: The 1917 Campaign, by Leon Wolff (read 8 June 1965) (Book of the Year)
  23. In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences, by Truman Capote (read 5 June 1966) (Book of the Year)
  24. The Heart of Midlothian, by Sir Walter Scott (read 25 Mar 1967) (Book of the Year)
  25. The Thirty Years War, by C. V. Wedgwood (read 21 Dec 1968) (Book of the Year)
  26. Asquith: Portrait of a Man and an Era, by Roy Jenkins (read 22 Jan 1969) (Book of the Year)
  27. The Andromeda Strain, by Michael Crichton (read 9 Oct 1970) (Book of the Year)
  28. Admirals in Collison, by Richard Hough (read 1 Aug 1971) (Book of the Year)
  29. The Green Flag: The Turbulent History of the Irish National Movement, by Robert Kee (read 14 Dec 1972) (Book of the Year)
  30. Power to Dissolve: Lawyers and Marriages in the Courts of the Roman Curia, by John T. Noonan, Jr. (read 16 June 1973) (Book of the Year)
  31. The Parnell Tragedy, by Jules Abels (read 22 Oct 1974) (Book of the Year)
  32. Macaulay: The Shaping of the Historian, by John Clive (read 6 July 1975) (Book of the Year) (National Book Award history prize for 1974)
  33. The Impending Crisis 1848-1861, by David M. Potter Completed by Don E. Fehrenbacher (read 15 May 1976) (Book of the Year) (Pulitzer History prize in 1977)
  34. Roots, by Alex Haley (read 28 Oct 1977) (Book of the Year)
  35. A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962, by Alistair Horne (read 9 June 1978) (Book of the Year)
  36. The Tichborne Claimant: A Victorian Mystery, by Douglas Woodruff (read 11 June 1979) (Book of the Year)
  37. The Great Mutiny, by James Dugan (read 28 Oct 1980) (Book of the Year)
  38. The Killer Angels A Novel, by Michael Shaara (read 29 May 1981) (Book of the Year) (Pulitzer Fiction prize in 1975)
  39. The Sicilian Vespers: A History of the Mediterranean World in the Later Thirteenth Century, by Steven Runciman (read 7 Nov 1982) (Book of the Year)
  40. The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870-1914, by David McCullough (read 21 Mar 1983) (Book of the Year) (National Book Award history prize for 1978)
  41. The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics, by Don E. Fehrenbacher (read 15 May 1984) (Book of the Year) (Pulitzer History prize in 1979)
  42. France Under the Republic:The Development of Modern France (1870-1939), by D. W. Brogan (read 15 Nov 1985) (Book of the Year)
  43. The Affair: The Case of Alfred Dreyfus, by Jean-Denis Bredin translated from the French by Jeffrey Mehlman (read 19 Mar 1986) (Book of the Year)
  44. The Age of Jackson, by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (read 15 Oct 1987) (Book of the Year) (Pulitzer History prize in 1946)
  45. Chronicle of Youth: The War Diary 1913-1917, by Vera Brittain (read 14 Jul 1988) (Book of the Year)
  46. Alive, by Piers Paul Read (read 10 Jun 1989) (Book of the Year)
  47. The Making of the Atomic Bomb, by Richard Rhodes (read 13 May 1990) (Book of the Year) (Pulitzer Nonfiction prize in 1988) (National Book Award nonfiction prize in 1987) (National Book Critics Circle nonfiction award for 1987)
  48. The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848-1918, by A. J. P. Taylor (read 13 Apr 1991) (Book of the Year)
  49. Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War, by Robert K. Massie (read 7 Sep 1992) (Book of the Year)
  50. The Bishop's Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright, by Tom D. Crouch (read 5 Oct 1993) (Book of the Year)
  51. Crossing the Threshold of Hope, by His Holiness John Paul II translated from the Italian by Jenny McPhee and Martha McPhee (read 26 Dec 1994) (Book of the Year)
  52. A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt, by Geoffrey C. Ward (read 12 Sep 1995) (Book of the Year) (National Book Critics Circle biography award for 1989)
  53. Lincoln in American Memory, by Merrill D. Peterson (read 21 Jan 1996) (Book of the Year)
  54. Back to the Front: An Accidental Historian Walks the Trenches of World War I, by Stephen O'Shea (read 21 Dec 1997) (Book of the Year)
  55. The Death Penalty: An Historical and Theological Survey, by James J. Megivern (read 28 Oct 1998) (Book of the Year)
  56. We Were Soldiers Once...And Young Ia Drang: The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam, by Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore, U.S.A. (Ret.) and Joseph L. Galloway (read 4 May 1999) (Book of the Year)
  57. Flags of Our Fathers, by James Bradley with Ron Powers (read 12 Oct 2000) (Book of the Year)
  58. With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa, by E. B. Sledge (read 9 Mar 2001) (Book of the Year)
  59. The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate, by Robert A. Caro (read 27 May 2002) (Book of the Year) (Pulitzer Biography prize in 2003) (National Book Award nonfiction prize for 2002)
  60. Endurance Shackleton's Incredible Voyage, by Alfred Lansing (read 1 Mar 2003) (Book of the Year)
  61. Castles of Steel Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea, by Robert K. Massie (read 4 Mar 2004) (Book of the Year)
  62. Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour Armistice Day 1918 World War I and Its Violent Climax, by Joseph E. Persico (read 5 Sep 2005) (Book of the Year)
Author Comments: 

At the end of each year I pick the book that I was most impressed or enjoyed that year. This is the list for the years 1944 to date