1996

• Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West, by Stephen E. Ambrose (Simon & Schuster).
• Cruel as the Grave, a novel by John Armistead (Carrol & Graf).
• Confessions of an Accidental Businessman: It Takes a Lifetime to Find Wisdom , nonfiction by James A. Autry (Berrett-Koehler)
• Kermit W. Holley, Sr.: The Unsung Hero, by Ben E. Bailey.
• Father and Son, a novel by Larry Brown (Algonquin).
• Firestorm, a novel by Nevada Barr (Putnam).
• The Book of Yaak, nonfiction by Rick Bass (Houghton Mifflin).
• A Problem of Evidence: How the Prosecution Freed O.J. Simpson, by Joseph Bosco (Morrow).
• The Pear Tree That Bloomed in the Fall, by Will D. Campbell (Providence House).
• Charles Sumner, a biography by David Herbert Donald (Da Capo Press)
• Have No Fear: The Charles Evers Story, autobiography by Charles Evers (John Wiley & Sons)
• Talking about William Faulkner: Interviews with Jimmy Faulkner and Others, by Sally Wolff with Floyd C. Watkins (Louisiana State University Press).
• The Correspondence of Shelby Foote and Walker Percy, edited by Jay Tolson (Center for Documentary Studies)
• Tracks, juvenile fiction by David Galef (William Morrow).
• The Courts of Love: A Novella and Stories, by Ellen Gilchrist (Little, Brown).
• The Runaway Jury, a novel by John Grisham (Doubleday).
• Touched, by Carolyn Haines (Dutton).
• A Christmas Kiss, by Caroline Burnes (Carolyn Haines) (Harlequin).
• High Lonesome, short stories by Barry Hannah (Atlantic Monthly Press).
• Dead Over Heels, by Charlaine Harris (Scribner).
• Shakespeare’s Landlord, by Charlaine Harris (St. Martin’s).
• Clearance, a novel by Thomas Harris (Northwest).
• Tumult and Silence at Second Creek: An Inquiry into a Civil War Slave Conspiracy , nonfiction by Winthrop D. Jordan (Louisiana State University Press)
• The Waterborn, a novel by J. Gregory Keyes (Del Rey).
• The Best Money Murder Could Buy: A Stokes Moran Mystery, a novel by Neil McGaughey (Scribner)
• Granddaddy's Gift, by Margaree King Mitchell (Bridgewater Books)
• Sugar Among the Freaks: Selected Stories, by Lewis Nordan (Algonquin)
• The Seasons of Women: An Anthology, edited by Gloria Norris (W.W. Norton).
• Pioneer Women: The Lives of Women on the Frontier, by Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith (Smithmark).
• Children of the Dark House: Text and Context in Faulkner, by Noel Polk (University Press of Mississippi).
• Reading Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury, by Stephen M. Ross and Noel Polk (University Press of Mississippi).
• A Long Ways from Where I've Been: An African-American's Journey from the Jim Crow South to Chicago's Gold Coast , nonfiction by Roosevelt Richards (Noble Press)
• Circling, poems by Paul Ruffin (1996)
• The Wonder Book of the Air, a novel by Cynthia Shearer (Pantheon)
• In the Country of Hearts: Journeys in the Art of Medicine, essays by John Stone (Louisiana State University Press).
• Last Days of the Dog-Men, short stories by Brad Watson
• Fertile Ground, a novel by Charles Wilson (St. Martin's Press).
  For additional titles and more information on the above titles, go to the Book News title list for 1996.

Beth Henley's play Signature produced in Trenton, N.J., by the Passage Theater Co. (Mill Hill Playhouse).

Beth Henley's play L-Play first produced in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, by the Unicore Theatre Company as part of the Berkshire Theatre Festival.

Richard Ford receives the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his novel Independence Day.

Premiere of The Chamber, directed by James Foley, based on the novel by John Grisham.

Premiere of A Time to Kill, directed by Joel Schumacher, based on the novel by John Grisham.