These Pulitzer Prize books promise extraordinary storytelling that'll move you and make you see the world in new ways
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Your Guide to the Pulitzer Prize–Winning Books of 2024
Updated on Jan. 31, 2025
There are good reads and then there are great reads. If you’re after the latter, you’re in luck. I’ve got all the details on the fiction and nonfiction Pulitzer Prize books of 2024. The list is stacked with seven outstanding books that will get you thinking critically about history and society.
The ceremony wasn’t without its surprises: This time around, two books took home prizes in the biography category. Both cover figures in Black American history who spent their lives resisting racism and uplifting their communities but in different eras and different ways.
The jurors and board members who sort through the 2,500 entries look for books that fall under the category of “distinguished.” Between the finalists and the winners, you’ll find books that offer new looks into the lives of famous people and those who should be more well-known, fiction that will break your heart and give you hope, nonfiction that will reshape the way you look at the world and memoirs about life-altering events.
Intrigued? Let’s dive into the latest Pulitzer Prize books and runners-up to read.
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What are the Pulitzer Prize books of 2024?
Get that TBR list ready—you’re going to want to add these seven standout books to it, stat. Here are the 2024 Pulitzer Prize winners and finalists.
Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Set during and just after the Civil War, this moving historical fiction book about a 12-year-old girl and her mother hits all the emotional beats. ConaLee’s childhood is hard enough with her father having vanished while serving in the Union army. Things get worse when a stranger pretending to be her father insinuates himself into her home, abuses her mother and then abandons them at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. Night Watch balances heavy topics like mental health, racism and the generational trauma caused by war with compassion for its characters and evocative prose.
Finalists:
- Same Bed Different Dreams by Ed Park
- Wednesday’s Child by Yiyun Li
No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era by Jacqueline Jones
Pulitzer Prize for History
In this nonfiction book, Jacqueline Jones explores the tension between labor and racism in 19th-century Boston. At the time, many Black Bostonians were excluded from well-paying jobs due to anti-Black racism, despite the city’s reputation for economic opportunities and mobility. With a clear and compelling narrative style, No Right to an Honest Living sheds light on the ways Black Americans found to force open the many doors that were closed to them. She also highlights the long-reaching impacts their contributions had on the economies of Boston and the United States as a whole.
Finalists:
- American Anarchy: The Epic Struggle Between Immigrant Radicals and the U.S. Government at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century by Michael Willrich
- Continental Reckoning: The American West in the Age of Expansion by Elliott West
King: A Life by Jonathan Eig
Pulitzer Prize for Biography
There have been countless biographies of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. over the years. What makes King: A Life so special? Jonathan Eig used interviews and oral histories from important figures in the Civil Rights Movement; documents from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which King helped establish; and materials only recently released from the FBI’s extensive files on King. The result is a recounting of a life both sweeping and intimate. Whether or not you’ve read other King biographies before, this one is worth your time.
Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon Woo
Pulitzer Prize for Biography
In 2024, we were blessed with two Pulitzer Prize winners for biography, and Master Slave Husband Wife is a compelling complement to King: A Life. Ellen and William Craft were an enslaved couple who escaped the South in 1848. Ellen, who was light enough to pass as white, disguised herself as a sickly old man, with her husband playing the role of her faithful slave. Ilyon Woo captures the harrowing events that marked their journey from Georgia to Canada and England, their work with abolitionists in the North and their eventual return to the South after the Civil War.
Finalist: Larry McMurtry: A Life by Tracy Daugherty
Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice by Cristina Rivera Garza
Pulitzer Prize for Memoir or Autobiography
It was nearly 30 years after her sister’s brutal murder in Mexico before author Cristina Rivera Garza was able to examine Liliana’s colorful life and untimely death. That exploration, carefully laid out with moving prose in Liliana’s Invincible Summer, gave her not only a peek into the circumstances around the attack but also a better understanding of who Liliana was as a daughter, sister, friend and woman bound by violent patriarchal constraints. And with those discoveries, she was able to confront her own grief. Rivera Garza is one of Mexico’s most well-known and prolific contemporary authors, and this memoir is her at her best.
Finalists:
- The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions by Jonathan Rosen
- The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight by Andrew Leland
A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy by Nathan Thrall
Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction
A Day in the Life of Abed Salama is a heart-wrenching account of the struggles of a Palestinian father, Abed Salama, to track down his 5-year-old son, Milad, through a labyrinth of oppression in Israel. After Milad’s school bus is in a fiery crash, Abed encounters numerous obstacles—including literal walls blocking access to hospitals—in the search for his son. The author, a Jewish American living in Jerusalem, also looks at the historical events that set up the circumstances leading to the accident and the subsequent chaos surrounding Milad’s fate. It’s a powerful account of one man’s tragedy and an unflinching examination of the systemic oppressions that led to it.
Finalists:
- Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives by Siddharth Kara
- Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World by John Vaillant
Tripas: Poems by Brandon Som
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
Brandon Som’s Tripas is a tribute to his Chinese and Mexican heritage, his working-class family and language itself. Through what the National Book Foundation (which named it a 2023 finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry) called ” telephonic poems,” Som connects languages and cultures. Though the poetry collection may challenge those new to the medium, it’s an ultimately rewarding read.
Finalists:
- Information Desk: An Epic by Robyn Schiff
- To 2040 by Jorie Graham
FAQs
What, exactly, is the Pulitzer Prize?
In the late 19th century, Jewish Hungarian immigrant Joseph Pulitzer owned a thriving journalism empire before transitioning into politics. He set aside a portion of his will to establish a journalism school at Columbia University as well as several awards and scholarships that eventually became known as the Pulitzer Prizes.
The first winners received their awards in 1917. Today, jurors and board members select finalists and winners in the categories of journalism, books (including poetry, literature, nonfiction, biographies and autobiographies or memoirs), drama and music. There are also special awards and citations that go to individuals and groups doing outstanding work in their fields.
Why is the Pulitzer Prize so important?
The Pulitzer Prize is widely regarded as one of the highest national awards. It brings attention to crucial topics the public may not be aware of and honors journalists and writers demonstrating exceptional work.
When will the 2025 Pulitzer Prize winners be announced?
The winners and finalists will be announced in May 2025. Traditionally, the Pulitzer Prize committee does not share the list of finalists before announcing the winners; it reveals both at the same time.
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At Reader’s Digest, we’ve been sharing our favorite books for over 100 years. We’ve worked with bestselling authors including Susan Orlean, Janet Evanovich and Alex Haley, whose Pulitzer Prize–winning Roots grew out of a project funded by and originally published in the magazine. Through Fiction Favorites (formerly Select Editions and Condensed Books), Reader’s Digest has been publishing anthologies of abridged novels for decades. We’ve worked with some of the biggest names in fiction, including James Patterson, Ruth Ware, Kristin Hannah and more. The Reader’s Digest Book Club, helmed by Books Editor Tracey Neithercott, introduces readers to even more of today’s best fiction by upcoming, bestselling and award-winning authors. For this piece on Pulitzer Prize books, Alex Brown tapped their experience as a librarian, Ignyte Award–winning writer and book critic to ensure that all information is accurate and offers the best possible advice to readers. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.
Source:
- The Pulitzer Prizes: “2024 Pulitzer Prizes”
