| 2025 | Winner | Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI | Karen Hao | Penguin Press |
| 2025 | Finalist | Strata: Stories from Deep Time | Laura Poppick | W. W. Norton |
| 2025 | Finalist | The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything: How Carbon Dioxide Made Our World | Peter Brannen | Ecco |
| 2025 | Finalist | They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals | Mariah Blake | Crown |
| 2025 | Finalist | When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World | Jordan Thomas | University of North Carolina Press |
| 2024 | Winner | Our Moon: How Earth's Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are | Rebecca Boyle | Unknown |
| 2024 | Finalist | Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life | Ferris Jabr | Random House |
| 2024 | Finalist | Math in Drag | Kyne Santos | Unknown |
| 2024 | Finalist | The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth | Zoë Schlanger | HarperCollins |
| 2024 | Finalist | Twelve Trees: The Deep Roots of Our Future | Daniel Lewis | Unknown |
| 2023 | Winner | Is Math Real? How Simple Questions Lead Us to Mathematics’ Deepest Truths | Eugenia Cheng | Basic Books |
| 2023 | Finalist | A Book of Noises: Notes on the Auraculous | Caspar Henderson | University of Chicago Press |
| 2023 | Finalist | A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? | Zach Weinersmith, Kelly Weinersmith | Penguin Press |
| 2023 | Finalist | The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet | Jeff Goodell | Little, Brown |
| 2023 | Finalist | The Possibility of Life: Science, Imagination, and Our Quest for Kinship in the Cosmos | Jaime Green | Unknown |
| 2022 | Winner | How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures | Sabrina Imbler | Back Bay Books |
| 2022 | Finalist | An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us | Ed Yong | Random House |
| 2022 | Finalist | Beyond Measure: The Hidden History of Measurement From Cubits to Quantum Constants | James Vincent | W. W. Norton |
| 2022 | Finalist | Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes Through Indigenous Science | Jessica Hernandez | Unknown |
| 2022 | Finalist | Life on the Rocks: Building a Future for Coral Reefs | Juli Berwald | Riverhead Books |
| 2021 | Winner | The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, & Dreams Deferred | Chanda Prescod-Weinstein | Bold Type Books |
| 2021 | Finalist | A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds | Scott Weidensaul | W. W. Norton |
| 2021 | Finalist | God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning | Meghan O'Gieblyn | Doubleday |
| 2021 | Finalist | Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World | Katharine Hayhoe | Unknown |
| 2021 | Finalist | Wild Souls: Freedom and Flourishing in the Non-Human World | Emma Marris | Bloomsbury |
| 2020 | Winner | The Smallest Lights in the Universe | Sara Seager | Crown |
| 2020 | Finalist | The Alchemy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another | Ainissa Ramirez | MIT Press |
| 2020 | Finalist | The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values | Brian Christian | W. W. Norton |
| 2020 | Finalist | The Book of Eels: Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creatures in the Natural World | Patrik Svensson | Ecco |
| 2020 | Finalist | Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life | Lulu Miller | Simon & Schuster |
| 2019 | Winner | Figuring | Maria Popova | Pantheon |
| 2019 | Finalist | Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom | Katherine Eban | Ecco |
| 2019 | Finalist | Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men | Caroline Criado-Perez | Chatto & Windus |
| 2019 | Finalist | Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster | Adam Higginbotham | Henry Holt and Company |
| 2019 | Finalist | Superior: The Return of Race Science | Angela Saini | Unknown |
| 2018 | Winner | Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America | Beth Macy | Little, Brown |
| 2018 | Finalist | Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America | Eliza Griswold | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2018 | Finalist | Nine Pints: A Journey Through the Money, Medicine, and Mysteries of Blood | Rose George | Henry Holt and Company |
| 2018 | Finalist | Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World | Marcia Bjornerud | Princeton University Press |
| 2018 | Finalist | What the Eyes Don’t See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City | Mona Hanna-Attisha | One World |
| 2017 | Winner | Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst | Robert Sapolsky | Penguin Press |
| 2017 | Finalist | A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution | Jennifer A. Doudna, Samuel H. Sternberg | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |
| 2017 | Finalist | Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence | Max Tegmark | Allen Lane |
| 2017 | Finalist | Making Sense of Science: Separating Substance from Spin | Cornelia Dean | Harvard University Press |
| 2017 | Finalist | Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams | Matthew Walker | Unknown |
| 2016 | Winner | Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets | Luke Dittrich | Random House |
| 2016 | Finalist | Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War | Mary Roach | W. W. Norton |
| 2016 | Finalist | I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life | Ed Yong | Vintage Books |
| 2016 | Finalist | Light: A Radiant History from Creation to the Quantum Age | Bruce Watson | Bloomsbury |
| 2016 | Finalist | Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond | Sonia Shah | Unknown |
| 2015 | Winner | The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science | Andrea Wulf | Knopf |
| 2015 | Finalist | How to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of De-Extinction | Beth Shapiro | Princeton University Press |
| 2015 | Finalist | Machines of Loving Grace: The Quest for Common Ground Between Humans and Robots | John Markoff | Ecco |
| 2015 | Finalist | Rust: The Longest War | Jonathan Waldman | Unknown |
| 2015 | Finalist | The Evil Hours: A Biography of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder | David J. Morris | Unknown |
| 2014 | Winner | The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History | Elizabeth Kolbert | Henry Holt |
| 2014 | Finalist | Cosmigraphics: Picturing Space Through Time | Michael Benson | Abrams Press |
| 2014 | Finalist | Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One’s Looking) | Christian Rudder | Random House Canada |
| 2014 | Finalist | MD, Missing Microbes, How the overuse of antibiotics is fueling our modern plagues | Martin J. Blaser | Henry Holt and Company |
| 2014 | Finalist | This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate | Naomi Klein | Simon & Schuster |
| 2013 | Winner | Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth? | Alan Weisman | Little, Brown |
| 2013 | Finalist | Animal Wise: The Thoughts and Emotions of our Fel- low Creatures | Virginia Morell | Crown |
| 2013 | Finalist | Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience | Sally Satel, Scott O. Lilienfeld | Basic Books |
| 2013 | Finalist | Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction | Annalee Newitz | Unknown |
| 2013 | Finalist | Social: Why Our Brains are Wired to Connect | Matthew D. Lieberman | Unknown |
| 2012 | Winner | Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History | Florence Williams | W. W. Norton |
| 2012 | Finalist | Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking | Susan Cain | Crown |
| 2012 | Finalist | The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail—but Some Don’t | Nate Silver | Penguin Press |
| 2012 | Finalist | The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human | Jonathan Gottschall | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |
| 2012 | Finalist | Turing’s Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe | George Dyson | Pantheon |
| 2011 | Winner | Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius | Sylvia Nasar | Simon & Schuster |
| 2011 | Finalist | A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea: The Race to Kill the BP Oil Gusher | Joel Achenbach | Unknown |
| 2011 | Finalist | Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution | Holly Tucker | W. W. Norton |
| 2011 | Finalist | The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood | James Gleick | Fourth Estate |
| 2011 | Finalist | Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men | Mara Hvistendahl | PublicAffairs |
| 2010 | Winner | The Price of Altruism: George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness | Oren Harman | W. W. Norton |
| 2010 | Finalist | Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming | Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway | Bloomsbury |
| 2010 | Finalist | Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love & Fallout | Lauren Redniss | Unknown |
| 2010 | Finalist | The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer | Siddhartha Mukherjee | Scribner |
| 2010 | Finalist | The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks | Rebecca Skloot | Crown |
| 2009 | Winner | The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom | Graham Farmelo | Faber & Faber |
| 2009 | Finalist | Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human | Richard Wrangham | Basic Books |
| 2009 | Finalist | Cold: Adventures in the World’s Frozen Places | Bill Streever | Little, Brown |
| 2009 | Finalist | Naming Nature: The Clash Between Instinct and Science | Carol Kaesuk Yoon | Unknown |
| 2009 | Finalist | The Day We Found the Universe | Marcia Bartusiak | Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |
| 2008 | Winner | The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics | Leonard Susskind | Little, Brown |
| 2008 | Finalist | Microcosm: E.Coli and the New Science of Life | Carl Zimmer | Pantheon |
| 2008 | Finalist | Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul | Kenneth R. Miller | Viking |
| 2008 | Finalist | What the Nose Knows: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life | Avery Gilbert | Crown |
| 2008 | Finalist | Worlds Before Adam: The Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Reform | Martin J. S. Rudwick | University of Chicago Press |
| 2007 | Winner | I Am a Strange Loop | Douglas Hofstadter | Basic Books |
| 2007 | Finalist | Architects: Building and the Evolution of Intelligence | James L. Gould, Carol Grant Gould | Unknown |
| 2007 | Finalist | Faust in Copenhagen: A Struggle for the Soul of Physics | Gino Segrè | Viking |
| 2007 | Finalist | On Deep History and the Brain | Daniel Lord Smail | University of California Press |
| 2007 | Finalist | The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language | Christine Kenneally | Viking |
| 2006 | Winner | In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind | Eric R. Kandel | W. W. Norton |
| 2006 | Finalist | The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth | Edward O. Wilson | W. W. Norton |
| 2006 | Finalist | The First Human: The Race to Discover Our Earliest Ancestors | Ann Gibbons | Doubleday |
| 2006 | Finalist | The First Scientific American: Benjamin Franklin and the Pursuit of Genius | Joyce Chaplin | Basic Books |
| 2006 | Finalist | This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession | Daniel J. Levitin | Unknown |
| 2005 | Winner | Before the Fallout: From Marie Curie to Hiroshima | Diana Preston | Unknown |
| 2005 | Finalist | Descent: The Heroic Discovery of the Abyss | Brad Matsen | Pantheon |
| 2005 | Finalist | Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo | Sean B. Carroll | W. W. Norton |
| 2005 | Finalist | Ice: The Nature, the History, and the Uses of an Astonishing Substance | Mariana Gosnell | Knopf |
| 2005 | Finalist | The Republican War on Science | Chris Mooney | Basic Books |
| 2004 | Winner | The Whale and the Supercomputer: On the Northern Front of Climate Change | Charles Wohlforth | North Point Press |
| 2004 | Finalist | His Brother’s Keeper: A Story from the Edge of Medicine | Jonathan Weiner | Harper Perennial |
| 2004 | Finalist | On the Wing: To the Edge of the Earth with the Peregrine Falcon | Alan Tennant | Knopf |
| 2004 | Finalist | Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century | Lauren Slater | Unknown |
| 2004 | Finalist | The Proteus Effect: Stem Cells and Their Promise for Medicine | Ann Parson | Unknown |
| 2003 | Winner | Protecting America’s Health: The FDA, Business, and One Hundred Years of Regulation | Philip J. Hilts | Knopf |
| 2003 | Finalist | Merchants of Immortality: Chasing the Dream of Human Life Extension | Stephen S. Hall | Unknown |
| 2003 | Finalist | The Beast in the Garden: A Modern Parable of Man and Nature | David Baron | W. W. Norton |
| 2003 | Finalist | The Emperor of Scent: A Story of Perfume, Obsession, and the Last Mystery of the Senses | Chandler Burr | Random House |
| 2003 | Finalist | Wings of Madness: Alberto Santos-Dumont and the Invention of Flight | Paul Hoffman | Fourth Estate |
| 2002 | Winner | Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA | Brenda Maddox | HarperCollins |
| 2002 | Finalist | Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection | Deborah Blum | Berkley |
| 2002 | Finalist | Of Moths and Men: An Evolutionary Tale | Judith Hooper | W. W. Norton |
| 2002 | Finalist | Salt: A World History | Mark Kurlansky | Unknown |
| 2002 | Finalist | The Demon in the Freezer: A True Story | Richard Preston | Random House |
| 2001 | Winner | The Invention of Clouds: How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies | Richard Hamblyn | Picador |
| 2001 | Finalist | A Different Nature: The Paradoxical World of Zoos and Their Uncertain Future | David Hancocks | University of California Press |
| 2001 | Finalist | In Code: A Mathematical Journey | Sarah Flannery, David Flannery | Profile Books |
| 2001 | Finalist | The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science That Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry | Bryan Sykes | Bantam Books |
| 2001 | Finalist | Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood | Oliver Sacks | Macmillan |
| 2000 | Winner | The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine | James Le Fanu, M.D. | Basic Books |
| 2000 | Finalist | A Rum Affair: A True Story of Botanical Fraud | Karl Sabbagh | Unknown |
| 2000 | Finalist | E = mc2: A Biography of the World’s Most Famous Equation | David Bodanis | Macmillan |
| 2000 | Finalist | Einstein in Love: A Scientific Romance | Dennis Overbye | Viking |
| 2000 | Finalist | Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters | Matt Ridley | HarperCollins |
| 1999 | Winner | Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love | Dava Sobel | Fourth Estate |
| 1999 | Finalist | Lucy’s Legacy: Sex and Intelligence in Human Evolution | Alison Jolly | Harvard University Press |
| 1999 | Finalist | Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures With Wolf-Birds | Bernd Heinrich | Unknown |
| 1999 | Finalist | The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography | Simon Singh | Unknown |
| 1999 | Finalist | The River: A Journey to the Source of HIV and AIDS | Edward Hooper | Unknown |
| 1998 | Winner | Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce | Douglas Starr | Knopf |
| 1998 | Finalist | Mendel’s Dwarf | Simon Mawer | Penguin Books |
| 1998 | Finalist | Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind | V. S. Ramachandran, Sandra Blakeslee | Harper Perennial |
| 1998 | Finalist | Taking Wing: Archaeopteryx & The Evolution of Bird Flight | Pat Shipman | Simon & Schuster |
| 1998 | Finalist | The Baltimore Case: A Trial of Politics, Science, and Character | Daniel J. Kevles | W. W. Norton |
| 1997 | Winner | How the Mind Works | Steven Pinker | W. W. Norton |
| 1997 | Finalist | Deadly Feasts: Tracking the Secrets of a Terrifying New Plague | Richard Rhodes | Unknown |
| 1997 | Finalist | The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes and Its Implications | David Deutsch | Unknown |
| 1997 | Finalist | The Trouble With Testosterone And Other Essays On The Biology Of The Human Predicament | Robert M. Sapolsky | Scribner |
| 1997 | Finalist | Venus Revealed: A New Look Below the Clouds of Our Mysterious Twin Planet | David Harry Grinspoon | Unknown |
| 1996 | Winner | The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark | Carl Sagan | Ballantine Books |
| 1996 | Finalist | Fermat’s Last Theorem: Unlocking the Secret of an Ancient Mathematical Problem | Amir D. Aczel | Unknown |
| 1996 | Finalist | Fire in the Mind: Science, Faith, and the Search for Order | George Johnson | Unknown |
| 1996 | Finalist | Home from Nowhere: Remaking Our Everyday World for the 21st Century | James Howard Kunstler | Simon & Schuster |
| 1996 | Finalist | The Dying of the Trees | Charles E. Little | Penguin Press |
| 1996 | Finalist | The Forgotten Pollinators | Stephen L. Buchmann, Gary Paul Nabhan | Unknown |
| 1996 | Finalist | The Most Beautiful Molecule: The Discovery of the Buckyball | Hugh Aldersey-Williams | Wiley |
| 1995 | Winner | Naturalist | Edward O. Wilson | Island Press |
| 1995 | Finalist | An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales | Oliver Sacks | Knopf |
| 1995 | Finalist | Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain | Antonio R. Damasio | Vintage Books |
| 1995 | Finalist | The Alchemy of the Heavens: Searching for Meaning in the Milky Way | Ken Croswell | Anchor |
| 1995 | Finalist | The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are -- The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology | Robert Wright | Unknown |
| 1994 | Winner | The Beak of the Finch: A Story Of Evolution In Our Time | Jonathan Weiner | Knopf |
| 1994 | Finalist | Signs of Life: The Language and Meanings of DNA | Robert Pollack | Viking |
| 1994 | Finalist | The End of Evolution | Peter Ward | Orion |
| 1994 | Finalist | Uncommon Sense: The Heretical Nature of Science | Alan Cromer | Oxford University Press |
| 1994 | Finalist | Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers | Robert M. Sapolsky | Unknown |
| 1993 | Winner | Fuzzy Logic: The Discovery of a Revolutionary Computer Technology -- and How It Is Changing Our World | Daniel McNeill, Paul Freiberger | Simon & Schuster |
| 1993 | Finalist | AI: The Tumultuous History of the Search for Artificial Intelligence | Daniel Crevier | Unknown |
| 1993 | Finalist | Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion | Gary Taubes | Random House |
| 1993 | Finalist | Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman | James Gleick | Little, Brown |
| 1993 | Finalist | The Diversity of Life | Edward O. Wilson | W. W. Norton |
| 1992 | Winner | The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal | Jared Diamond | Unknown |
| 1992 | Finalist | Artificial Life: A Report from the Frontier Where Computers Meet Biology | Steven Levy | Unknown |
| 1992 | Finalist | Blinded By The Light: New Theories About the Sun and the Search for Dark Matter | John Gribbin | Bantam Books |
| 1992 | Finalist | Consciousness Explained | Daniel C. Dennett | Allen Lane |
| 1992 | Finalist | The Left-Hander Syndrome: The Causes & Consequences of Left-Handedness | Stanley Coren | Free Press |
| 1991 | Winner | The Truth About Chernobyl | Grigori Medvedev | Basic Books |
| 1991 | Finalist | Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos: The Story of the Scientific Quest for the Secret of the Universe | Dennis Overbye | Harper Perennial |
| 1991 | Finalist | The Ascent of Mind: Ice Age Climates and the Evolution of Intelligence | William H. Calvin | Bantam Books |
| 1991 | Finalist | The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan | Robert Kanigel | Unknown |
| 1991 | Finalist | Walking With the Great Apes: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, Biruté Galdikas | Sy Montgomery | Mariner Books |
| 1990 | Winner | Patenting the Sun: Polio and the Salk Vaccine | Jane S. Smith | Anchor |
| 1990 | Finalist | Discovering: Inventing and Solving Problems at the Frontiers of Scientific Knowledge | Robert Scott Root-Bernstein | Unknown |
| 1990 | Finalist | Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism and the Unmaking of Civilization | Christopher Manes | Back Bay Books |
| 1990 | Finalist | Sonoran Desert Summer | John Alcock | University of Arizona Press |
| 1990 | Finalist | The Control of Nature | John McPhee | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 1989 | Winner | Peacemaking Among Primates | Frans de Waal | Harvard University Press |
| 1989 | Finalist | Is Science Necessary?: Essays on Science and Scientists | Max F. Perutz | Unknown |
| 1989 | Finalist | Science as a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science | David L. Hull | Unknown |
| 1989 | Finalist | The Five Senses | F. Gonzalez-Crussi | Unknown |
| 1989 | Finalist | What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery | Francis Crick | Basic Books |