| Autobiography/Biography | | Hardcover | Mornings on Horseback, David McCullough | | Paperback | Walter Lippmann and the American Century, Ronald Steel |
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| Children's Books, Fiction | | Hardcover | Westmark, Lloyd Alexander | | Paperback | Words by Heart, Ouida Sebestyen |
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| Children's Books, Nonfiction | | Hardcover | A Penguin Year, Susan Bonners |
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| Children's Books, Picture Books | | Hardcover | Outside Over There, Maurice Sendak | | Paperback | Noah's Ark, Peter Spier |
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| Fiction | | Hardcover | Rabbit Is Rich, John Updike | | Paperback | So Long, See You Tomorrow, William Maxwell |
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| First Novel | Dale Loves Sophie to Death, Robb Forman Dew |
| General Nonfiction | | Hardcover | The Soul of a New Machine, Tracy Kidder | | Paperback | Naming Names, Victor S. Navasky |
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| History | | Hardcover | People of the Sacred Mountain: A History of the Northern Cheyenne Chiefs and Warrior Societies, 1830–1879, Father Peter John Powell | | Paperback | The Generation of 1914, Robert Wohl |
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| Poetry | Life Supports: New and Collected Poems, William Bronk |
| Science | | Hardcover | Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind, Donald C. Johanson and Maitland A. Edey | | Paperback | Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics for Nonscientists, Fred Alan Wolf |
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| Translation | Higuchi Ichiyo's In the Shade of Spring Leaves, Robert Lyons Danly |
| The Ten Thousand Leaves: A Translation of the Man'Yoshu, Japan's Premier Anthology of Classical Poetry, Ian Hideo Levy |
