- The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton
- Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
- The Deep End of the Ocean by by Jacquelyn Mitchard
1997:
- The Meanest Thing to Say by Bill Cosby
- The Treasure Hunt by Bill Cosby
- The Best Way to Play by Bill Cosby
- Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons
- A Virtuous Woman by Kaye Gibbons
- A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines
- Songs in Ordinary Time by Marry McGarry Morris
- The Heart of a Woman by Maya Angelou
- The Rapture of Canaan by Sheri Reynolds
- Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi
- She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb
1998:
- Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts
- Midwives by Chris Bohjalian
- What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day by Pearl Cleage
- I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb
- Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat
- Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen
- Here on Earth by Alice Hoffman
- Paradise by Toni Morrison
1999:
- A Map of the World by Jane Hamilton
- Vinegar Hill by A. Manette Ansay
- River, Cross My Heart by Breena Clarke
- Tara Road by Maeve Binchy
- Mother of Pearl by Melinda Haynes
- White Oleander by Janet Fitch
- The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve
- The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
- Jewel by Bret Lott
2000:
- House of Sand and Fog by by Andre Dubus III
- Drowning Ruth by Christina Schwarz
- Open House by Elizabeth Berg
- The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
- While I Was Gone by Sue Miller
- The Bluest Eyes by Toni Morrison
- Back Roads by Tawni O'Dell
- Daughter of Fortune by Isabelle Allende
- Gap Creek by Robert Morgan
2001:
- A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
- The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
- Cane River by Lalita Tademy
- Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail by Malika Oufkir
- Icy Sparks by Gwyn Hyman Rubio
- We Were The Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates
2002:
- Sula by Toni Morrison
- Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald
2003:
- East of Eden by John Steinbeck
- Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton
2004:
- One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
- The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
- The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
2005:
- A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
- As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
- The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
- A Light in August by William Faulkner
2006:
2007:
- The Measure of a Man by Sidney Poitier
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy
- Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
- Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
- The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
2008:
2009:
