
Em 2025, editoras inscreveram um total de 1.835 livros para o processo: 434 em Ficção, 652 em Não Ficção, 285 em Poesia, 139 em Literatura Traduzida e 325 em Literatura Juvenil. As decisões dos jurados são tomadas de forma independente da equipe e do Conselho de Administração da National Book Foundation, e as deliberações são estritamente confidenciais.

Entre as cinco categorias, nove dos autores já foram homenageados anteriormente pela National Book Foundation.
Confira a lista de finalistas:
Finalistas na categoria de Ficção
- The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) (Grove Press / Grove Atlantic), de Rabih Alameddine
- A Guardian and a Thief (Knopf / Penguin Random House), de Megha Majumdar
- The Antidote (Knopf / Penguin Random House), de Karen Russell
- North Sun: Or, the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther (A Strange Object / Deep Vellum Publishing), de Ethan Rutherford
- Palaver (Farrar, Straus and Giroux / Macmillan Publishers), de Bryan Washington
Finalistas na categoria de Não-ficção
- One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This (Knopf / Penguin Random House), de Omar El Akkad
- Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy (Ecco / HarperCollins Publishers), de Julia Ioffe
- Things in Nature Merely Grow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux / Macmillan Publishers), de Yiyun Li
- Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care (Abrams Press / Abrams), de Claudia Rowe
- When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World (Riverhead Books / Penguin Random House), de Jordan Thomas
Finalistas na categoria de Poesia
- The New Economy (Copper Canyon Press), de Gabrielle Calvocoressi
- Becoming Ghost (Washington Square Press / Simon & Schuster), de Cathy Linh Che
- Scorched Earth (Washington Square Press / Simon & Schuster), de Tiana Clark
- I Do Know Some Things (Copper Canyon Press), de Richard Siken
- The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems (Scribner / Simon & Schuster), de Patricia Smith
Finalistas na categoria de Literatura Traduzida
- On the Calculation of Volume (Book III) (New Directions Publishing), de Solvej Balle
- We Are Green and Trembling (New Directions Publishing), de Gabriela Cabezón Cámara
- The Remembered Soldier (New Vessel Press), de Anjet Daanje
- We Computers: A Ghazal Novel (Yale University Press), de Hamid Ismailov
- Sad Tiger (Seven Stories Press), de Neige Sinno
Finalistas na categoria de Literatura Infantojuvenil
- A World Worth Saving (Dial Books for Young Readers / Penguin Random House), de Kyle Lukoff
- The Leaving Room (Feiwel and Friends / Macmillan Publishers), de Amber McBride
- The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story (Levine Querido), de Daniel Nayeri
- Truth Is (Amulet Books / Abrams), de Hannah V. Sawyerr
- (S)Kin (Versify / HarperCollins Publishers), de Ibi Zoboi