National Book Critics Circle (NBCC)Award

The National Book Critics Circle(NBCC)Awards are a set of annual American Literary Awards by the National Book Critics Circle  to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English"

The first NBCC awards were announced and presented January 16, 1976

There are six awards to books published in the U.S. during the preceding calendar year, in 6 categories -
Fiction
Non-fiction
Poetry
Memoir/Autobiography
Biography and
Criticism

Four of them span the entire NBCC award history; Memoir/Autobiography and Biography were recognized by one "Autobiography/Biography" award for publication years 1983 to 2004, then replaced by two awards.

Beginning in 2014, the NBCC has announced they will be presenting a special "first book" award across all 6 categories, named the John Leonard Award in honor of literary critic and NBCC founding member John Leonard who died in 2008