Which book will win this year's NBCC Award?

The National Book Critics Circle announced the finalists for its 2010 book awards last Saturday at an event in New York City.

This year, the NBCC will present awards in six categories – fiction, biography, autobiography, criticism, nonfiction and poetry.

Finalists in the fiction category included “A Visit from the Goon Squad” by Jennifer Egan, “Freedom” by Jonathan Franzen, “To the End of the Land” by David Grossman, “Comedy in a Minor Key” by Hans Keilson and “Skippy Dies” by Paul Murray. For a complete list of the finalists in the other categories, visit www.bookcritics.org.

The NBCC was founded in 1974, and its members include 600 active book reviewers. Many consider the National Book Critics Circle Awards to be more prestigious than the National Book Awards, and it’s hard to argue with this line of thought when you consider that the NBCC awards are handpicked by professional book reviewers.

All of this got me to wondering about the other books who have received the NBCC award for fiction over the years, and today I present you with a complete list of the all-time winners. Here they are:

2009 – Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
2008 – 2666 by Roberto Bolano
2007 – The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
2006 – The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
2005 – The March by E.L. Doctorow
2004 – Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
2003 – The Known World by Edward P. Jones
2002 – Atonement by Ian McEwan
2001 – Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald
2000 – Being Dead by Jim Grace

1999 – Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
1998 – The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro
1997 – The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
1996 – Women in Their Beds by Gina Berriault
1995 – Mrs. Ted Bliss by Stanley Elkin
1994 – The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
1993 – A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines
1992 – All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
1991 – A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
1990 – Rabbit at Rest by John Updike

1989 – Billy Bathgate by E.L. Doctorow
1988 – The Middleman and Other Stories by Bharati Mukherjee
1987 – The Counterlife by Philip Roth
1986 – Kate Vaiden by Reynolds Price
1985 – The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
1984 – Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich
1983 – Ironweed by William Kennedy
1982 – George Mills by Stantley Elkin
1981 – Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike
1980 – The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard

1979 – The Year of the French by Thomas Flanagan
1978 – The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever
1977 – Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
1976 – October Light by John Gardner
1975 – Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow

In the end, how many of these books have you had a chance to read? Which did you like? Which would you recommend? Of this year’s finalists, who do you think will win this year’s award? Let us know in the comments section below.