Here’s the longlist for the 2026 National Book Award for Nonfiction.

Today, the National Book Foundation announced the longlist for the 2026 National Book Award for Nonfiction. These ten titles were selected from a pool of 727 books submitted for consideration by their publishers. This year’s judges for Nonfiction are Eve L.

Ewing, Audrey I-Wei Huang, Jonathan C. Slaght, Robert Warrior (Chair), and Lidia Yuknavitch. The finalists in all categories will be announced on Tuesday, October 6, and the winners revealed at the 77th National Book Awards Ceremony on November 18.

In the meantime, here’s the 2026 Nonfiction longlist: Rozina Ali, Seasons of Fury: Four Families and the Rise of Islamophobia in America Crown / Penguin Random House Colin Asher, The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music W. Norton & Company Zayd Ayers Dohrn, Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground W. Norton & Company Abdelrahman ElGendy, Huna: A Memoir of Revolution, Prison, and Becoming Hogarth / Penguin Random House Camonghne Felix, Let the Poets Govern: A Declaration of Freedom One World / Penguin Random House Wil Haygood, The War Within a War: The Black Struggle in Vietnam and at Home Knopf / Penguin Random House Sara Nović, Mother Tongue Random House / Penguin Random House Joseph Osmundson, Spawning Season: An Experiment in Queer Parenthood Bloomsbury Publishing Angela Pelster, The Evolution of Fire: Essays on Crisis and Becoming Milkweed Editions Wendy S.

Walters, A Dead White: An Argument Against White Paint Scribner / Simon & Schuster