• The Best Biographies of 2023: The National Book Critics Circle Shortlist - G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage
  • The Best Biographies of 2023: The National Book Critics Circle Shortlist - The Grimkés: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family by Kerri K. Greenidge
  • The Best Biographies of 2023: The National Book Critics Circle Shortlist - Mr. B: George Balanchine’s Twentieth Century by Jennifer Homans
  • The Best Biographies of 2023: The National Book Critics Circle Shortlist - Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life by Clare Mac Cumhaill & Rachael Wiseman
  • The Best Biographies of 2023: The National Book Critics Circle Shortlist - Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times by Aaron Sachs

The Best Biographies of 2023: The National Book Critics Circle Shortlist, recommended by Elizabeth Taylor

Talented biographers examine the interplay between individual qualities and greater social forces, explains Elizabeth Taylor—chair of the judges for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle award for biography. Here, she offers us an overview of their five-book shortlist, including a garlanded account of the life of J. Edgar Hoover and a group biography of post-war female philosophers.

  • The Best Memoirs: The 2022 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist - A Little Devil in America: Notes In Praise Of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib
  • The Best Memoirs: The 2022 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist - Gay Bar: Why We Went Out by Jeremy Atherton Lin
  • The Best Memoirs: The 2022 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist - A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes: A Son's Memoir of Gabriel García Márquez and Mercedes Barcha by Rodrigo Garcia
  • The Best Memoirs: The 2022 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist - A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa
  • The Best Memoirs: The 2022 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist - Concepcion: An Immigrant Family’s Fortunes by Albert Samaha

The Best Memoirs: The 2022 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist, recommended by Marion Winik

Autobiography is evolving; increasingly we find the field dominated by 'genre-fluid' books that plait memoir together with strands of cultural criticism, history, journalism or even poetry. Here, Marion Winik, the memoirist and critic, talks us through the five books that have been shortlisted in the National Book Critic's Circle autobiography category—and describes the face of memoir in 2022.

  • The Best Biographies: the 2021 NBCC Shortlist - Stranger in the Shogun's City: A Japanese Woman and Her World by Amy Stanley
  • The Best Biographies: the 2021 NBCC Shortlist - The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes by Zachary D. Carter
  • The Best Biographies: the 2021 NBCC Shortlist - The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne & Tamara Payne
  • The Best Biographies: the 2021 NBCC Shortlist - Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath by Heather Clark
  • The Best Biographies: the 2021 NBCC Shortlist - The Equivalents: A Story of Art, Female Friendship, and Liberation in the 1960s by Maggie Doherty

The Best Biographies: the 2021 NBCC Shortlist, recommended by Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor, the author, critic and chair of the National Book Critics’ Circle biography committee, discusses their 2021 shortlist for the title of the best biography—including a revelatory new book about the life of Malcolm X, a group biography of artists in the 1960s, and a book built from a cache of letters written in Japan’s shogun era.