* Fiction: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
* Nonfiction: The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright
* History: The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed
* Biography: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
* Poetry: Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey
* Drama: Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire
* Music: Double Sextet by Steve Reich
2008
* Fiction: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
* Nonfiction: The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 by Saul Friedländer
* History: The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff
* Biography: American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham
* Poetry: Failure by Philip Schultz
* Drama: August: Osage County by Tracy Letts
* Music: Become Ocean by John Luther Adams