Here is the 2026 National Book Award Shortlist for Nonfiction

In September, the National Book Award judges announced their longlists in five categories, including Nonfiction. Today, they’ve shared the five books on the shortlist. The awards are presented in November at the National Book Award Ceremony and Dinner. Finalists each take home $1,000, while the winner in each category receives $10,000 and a bronze sculpture.Here are the five books on the shortlist for the 2026 National Book Award for Nonfiction, along with what critics and authors are saying about them. The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music by Colin Asher “It’s a fog-piercing down-bound train of a book, better than it had to be… [A] multilayered indictment of America’s prison system, the largest in the world.” —The New York Times “Asher does especially nimble work in portraying his subjects as three-dimensional figures while detailing how the record industry exploited their links to the prison system to profit off their music, often in ways that flattened their life narratives. This is illuminating.” ―Publishers Weekly Huna: A Memoir of Revolution, Prison, and Becoming by Abdelrahman ElGendy “A beautifully written portrait of a radical political awakenin...