Historical fiction winners from the 2025 American Library Association Book and Media Awards

The American Library Association and its RUSA division recently announced the winners in their annual Book and Media Awards. I always like hearing about these because the judging is done by librarians, and there are few national awards just for historical fiction. And because historical novels cross over into other genres (you’ve heard me discuss this before), the winners fall into multiple categories as well. This post focuses on fiction for adults.

On the Reading List, the ALA's annual awards in eight genre fiction categories, the award for Historical Fiction was won by The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali, about women’s friendship in the politically volatile world of 1950s Iran.

The shortlist of Honor Titles for historical fiction includes:

All We Were Promised by Ashton Lattimore (1830s Philadelphia)
The Briar Club by Kate Quinn (1950s Washington, DC)
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon (18th-century Maine)
Masquerade by O.O. Sangoyomi (15th-century West Africa)

Leigh Bardugo’s The Familiar, Jewish-themed historical fantasy set in Renaissance-era Madrid, won in the Fantasy category, and the multi-period Kristin Perrin’s How to Solve Your Own Murder was rated tops in the Mystery category. The Romance category winner was Cat Sebastian’s You Should Be So Lucky, a gay sports-themed romance set in 1960s NYC.

The 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction went to Percival Everett’s James, his retelling of Huckleberry Finn from the character Jim’s perspective.

On the Listen List for excellence in audiobook narration:

The Bullet Swallower by Elizabeth Gonzalez James. Narrated by Lee Osorio. A “magic realism western.”
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon. Narrated by Jane Oppenheimer.
James by Percival Everett. Narrated by Dominic Hoffman.

On the Notable Books List, which includes nonfiction and literary fiction, we have:

James by Percival Everett
Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange (multigenerational epic about trauma inflicted on Native Americans)
Whale Fall by Elizabeth O’Connor (coming of age on a Welsh island in the 1930s)
Wolf at the Table by Adam Rapp (a decades-spanning story about an American family’s proximity to violence)

Congrats to the winners!