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The 2020-2021 New York City Book Awards

Welcome to the 25th anniversary season for the New York City Book Awards! Founded in 1995, these awards honor the best books about New York City published in a given year, regardless of genre. More on the June 9, 2021 ceremony.

The 2020 winners are

Johanna Fernández
The Young Lords: A Radical History

University of North Carolina Press

Bill Hayes
How We Live Now: Scenes from the Pandemic

Bloomsbury

N.K. Jemisin
The City We Became

Orbit

James McBride
Deacon King Kong

Riverhead

Jonathan Daniel Wells
The Kidnapping Club: Wall Street, Slavery, and Resistance on the Eve of Civil War

Bold Type Books

THE HORNBLOWER AWARD FOR A FIRST BOOK
Stephen Haff
Kid Quixotes: A Group of Students, Their Teacher, and the One-Room School Where Everything is Possible

and
Sarah Sierra and Stephen Haff
Becoming Kid Quixote: A True Story of Belonging in America

HarperCollins

The 25th anniversary awards ceremony, honoring winners from 2019 and 2020, takes place Wednesday, June 9, 2021.

PURCHASE THE WINNING BOOKS FROM THE CORNER BOOKSTORE

More general information and a complete list of winners from the awards’ past 24 years can be found here.


The 2020-2021 New York City Book Awards are generously underwritten by Ellen M. Iseman.