| 2025 | Winner | Mother Mary Comes to Me | Arundhati Roy | Scribner |
| 2025 | Finalist | A Truce That Is Not Peace | Miriam Toews | Knopf Canada |
| 2025 | Finalist | Memorial Days | Geraldine Brooks | Unknown |
| 2025 | Finalist | Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America | Beth Macy | Penguin Press |
| 2025 | Finalist | Shattered | Hanif Kureishi | Penguin Books |
| 2025 | Longlist | Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts | Margaret Atwood | Doubleday |
| 2025 | Longlist | I'll Tell You When I'm Home: A Memoir | Hala Alyan | Avid Reader Press |
| 2025 | Longlist | The Broken King | Michael Thomas | Grove Press |
| 2025 | Longlist | Things in Nature Merely Grow | Yiyun Li | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2025 | Longlist | Twice Born: Finding My Father In the Margins of Biography | Hester Kaplan | Catapult |
| 2024 | Winner | Patriot: A Memoir | Alexei Navalny | Knopf |
| 2024 | Finalist | Little Seed | Wei Tchou | Unknown |
| 2024 | Finalist | Mother Archive: A Dominican Family Memoir | Erika Morillo | Unknown |
| 2024 | Finalist | The Last Fire Season: A Personal and Pyronatural History | Manjula Martin | Unknown |
| 2024 | Finalist | The Minotaur at Calle Lanza | Zito Madu | Unknown |
| 2024 | Longlist | Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir | Tessa Hulls | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2024 | Longlist | Like a Sky Inside | Jakuta Alikavazovic | Unknown |
| 2024 | Longlist | Manboobs: A Memoir of Musicals, Visas, Hope, and Cake | Komail Aijazuddin | Abrams Press |
| 2024 | Longlist | My Good Bright Wolf: A Memoir | Sarah Moss | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2024 | Longlist | Women Surrounded | Water: A Memoir by Patricia Coral | Unknown |
| 2023 | Winner | How to Say Babylon: A Memoir | Safiya Sinclair | 37 Ink |
| 2023 | Finalist | I Would Meet You Anywhere: A Memoir | Susan Kiyo Ito | Ohio State University Press |
| 2023 | Finalist | Rotten Evidence: Reading and Writing in an Egyptian Prison | Ahmed Naji | Unknown |
| 2023 | Finalist | Secret Harvests: A Hidden Story of Separation and the Resilience of a Family Farm | David Mas Masumoto | Unknown |
| 2023 | Finalist | Story of a Poem: A Memoir | Matthew Zapruder | Unknown |
| 2022 | Winner | Stay True: A Memoir | Hua Hsu | Doubleday |
| 2022 | Finalist | A Line in the World: A Year on the North Sea Coast | Dorthe Nors | Unknown |
| 2022 | Finalist | Come Back in September: A Literary Education on West Sixty-Seventh Street, Manhattan | Darryl Pinckney | Unknown |
| 2022 | Finalist | Linea Nigra: An Essay on Pregnancy and Earthquakes | Jazmina Barrera | Unknown |
| 2022 | Finalist | The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir | Ingrid Rojas Contreras | Doubleday |
| 2021 | Winner | Gay Bar: Why We Went Out | Jeremy Atherton Lin | Little, Brown |
| 2021 | Finalist | A Farewell To Gabo And Mercedes: A Son's Memoir of Gabriel García Márquez and Mercedes Barcha | Rodrigo Garcia | Unknown |
| 2021 | Finalist | A Ghost in the Throat | Doireann Ní Ghríofa | Unknown |
| 2021 | Finalist | A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance | Hanif Abdurraqib | Random House |
| 2021 | Finalist | Concepcion: An Immigrant Family's Fortunes | Albert Samaha | Riverhead Books |
| 2020 | Winner | Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning | Cathy Park Hong | One World |
| 2020 | Finalist | Golem Girl | Riva Lehrer | One World |
| 2020 | Finalist | Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco | Alia Volz | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |
| 2020 | Finalist | The Dragons, The Giant, The Women | Wayétu Moore | Graywolf Press |
| 2020 | Finalist | This Is Major: Notes on Diana Ross, Dark Girls, and Being Dope | Shayla Lawson | Unknown |
| 2019 | Winner | Know My Name: A Memoir | Chanel Miller | Viking |
| 2019 | Finalist | Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators | Ronan Farrow | Little, Brown |
| 2019 | Finalist | Five Days Gone: The Mystery of My Mother's Disappearance as a Child | Laura Cumming | Scribner |
| 2019 | Finalist | Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations | Mira Jacob | One World |
| 2019 | Finalist | Sounds Like Titanic: A Memoir | Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman | W. W. Norton |
| 2018 | Winner | Belonging: A German Reckons With History and Home | Nora Krug | Scribner |
| 2018 | Finalist | All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir | Nicole Chung | Unknown |
| 2018 | Finalist | Educated: A Memoir | Tara Westover | Random House |
| 2018 | Finalist | Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over | Nell Painter | Counterpoint |
| 2018 | Finalist | The Day That Went Missing: A Family's Story | Richard Beard | Unknown |
| 2018 | Finalist | What Drowns the Flowers in Your Mouth: A Memoir of Brotherhood | Rigoberto Gonzalez | University of Wisconsin Press |
| 2017 | Winner | Nine Continents: A Memoir In and Out of China | Xiaolu Guo | Grove Atlantic |
| 2017 | Finalist | Admissions: Life as a Brain Surgeon | Henry Marsh | Unknown |
| 2017 | Finalist | Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body | Roxane Gay | HarperCollins |
| 2017 | Finalist | The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir | Thi Bui | Abrams Press |
| 2017 | Finalist | The Girl From the Metropol Hotel: Growing Up in Communist Russia | Ludmilla Petrushevskaya | Penguin Books |
| 2016 | Winner | Lab Girl | Hope Jahren | Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |
| 2016 | Finalist | In Gratitude | Jenny Diski | Unknown |
| 2016 | Finalist | The Iceberg: A Memoir | Marion Coutts | Grove Atlantic |
| 2016 | Finalist | The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between | Hisham Matar | Vintage Books |
| 2016 | Finalist | The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father | Kao Kalia Yang | Metropolitan Books |
| 2015 | Winner | Negroland: A Memoir | Margo Jefferson | Vintage Books |
| 2015 | Finalist | Bettyville | George Hodgman | Viking |
| 2015 | Finalist | H Is for Hawk | Helen Macdonald | Jonathan Cape |
| 2015 | Finalist | The Light of the World: A Memoir | Elizabeth Alexander | Unknown |
| 2015 | Finalist | The Odd Woman and the City | Vivian Gornick | Unknown |
| 2014 | Winner | Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? | Roz Chast | Bloomsbury USA |
| 2014 | Finalist | Little Failure | Gary Shteyngart | Random House Trade Paperbacks |
| 2014 | Finalist | The Other Side: A Memoir | Lacy M. Johnson | Tin House |
| 2014 | Finalist | The Splendid Things We Planned: A Family Portrait | Blake Bailey | W. W. Norton |
| 2014 | Finalist | There Was and There Was Not: A Journey Through Hate and Possibility in Turkey, Armenia, and Beyond | Meline Toumani | Henry Holt and Company |
| 2013 | Winner | Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter From Haiti | Amy Wilentz | Simon & Schuster |
| 2013 | Finalist | Men We Reaped | Jesmyn Ward | Bloomsbury |
| 2013 | Finalist | The Book of My Lives | Aleksandar Hemon | Picador |
| 2013 | Finalist | The Faraway Nearby | Rebecca Solnit | Viking |
| 2013 | Finalist | Wave | Sonali Deraniyagala | McClelland & Stewart |
| 2012 | Winner | Swimming Studies | Leanne Shapton | Penguin Books |
| 2012 | Finalist | House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East | Anthony Shadid | HarperCollins |
| 2012 | Finalist | In the House of the Interpreter | Ngugi wa Thiong’o | Anchor |
| 2012 | Finalist | My Poets | Maureen N. McLane | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| 2012 | Finalist | The Distance Between Us | Reyna Grande | Unknown |
| 2011 | Winner | The Memory Palace | Mira Bartók | Free Press |
| 2011 | Finalist | Harlem is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America | Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts | Little, Brown |
| 2011 | Finalist | It Calls You Back: An Odyssey through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing | Luis J. Rodriguez | Simon & Schuster |
| 2011 | Finalist | One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing | Diane Ackerman | W. W. Norton |
| 2011 | Finalist | Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War | Deb Olin Unferth | Henry Holt and Company |
| 2010 | Winner | Half a Life | Darin Strauss | Random House Trade Paperbacks |
| 2010 | Finalist | Crossing Mandelbaum Gate Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978 | Kai Bird | Scribner |
| 2010 | Finalist | Hiroshima in the Morning | Rahna Reiko Rizzuto | Feminist Press |
| 2010 | Finalist | Hitch-22: A Memoir | Christopher Hitchens | Twelve |
| 2010 | Finalist | Just Kids | Patti Smith | Bloomsbury |
| 2010 | Finalist | The Autobiography of an Execution | David Dow | Twelve |
| 2009 | Winner | Somewhere Towards the End | Diana Athill | Unknown |
| 2009 | Finalist | City Boy | Edmund White | Bloomsbury |
| 2009 | Finalist | Enemies of the People: My Family's Journey to America | Kati Marton | Simon & Schuster |
| 2009 | Finalist | Lit | Mary Karr | HarperCollins |
| 2009 | Finalist | Live Through This: A Mother's Memoir of Runaway Daughters and Reclaimed Love | Debra Gwartney | Houghton Mifflin |
| 2008 | Winner | My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq | Ariel Sabar | Algonquin Books |
| 2008 | Finalist | The Bishop's Daughter | Honor Moore | W. W. Norton |
| 2008 | Finalist | The Eaves of Heaven | Andrew X. Pham | Three Rivers Press |
| 2008 | Finalist | The House on Sugar Beach | Helene Cooper | Unknown |
| 2008 | Finalist | Why I Came West | Rick Bass | Unknown |
| 2007 | Winner | Brother, I'm Dying | Edwidge Danticat | Knopf |
| 2007 | Finalist | Heart Like Water: Surviving Katrina and Life in Its Disaster Zone | Joshua Clark | Free Press |
| 2007 | Finalist | Russian Diary: A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption and Death in Putin's Russia | Anna Politkovskaya | Unknown |
| 2007 | Finalist | The Journals of Joyce Carol Oates, 1973–1982 | Joyce Carol Oates | Ecco |
| 2007 | Finalist | Writing in an Age of Silence | Sara Paretsky | Verso Books |
| 2006 | Winner | The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million | Daniel Mendelsohn | HarperCollins |
| 2005 | Winner | Them: A Memoir of Parents | Francine du Plessix Gray | Penguin Press |