Goodreads Choice Awards Book Club discussion

Goodreads Choice Award Challenge 2021

The group challenge is to read as many nominees and award winners of the Goodreads Choice Awards 2020 as possible.

Challenge instructions - Easy step by step instructions put together by Kristie:

Creating Your Shelf
To participate in the Choice Awards Challenge, you will need to have a special shelf dedicated to the challenge. To do this, go to your bookshelf (click on “my books” to get there). Below your list of bookshelves on the lefthand side of the page, click on “add shelf”. Chose a name for your shelf that will let you know it is your challenge shelf (whatever name you want), Save the shelf.

Adding Books to Your Challenge Shelf
Check out the nominees and award winners below and add the ones you want to read/read to your challenge shelf. There are a couple of ways to do this. Please note that you can choose to add the book any one of the three ways below, just choose the way that you find easiest. You do not have to do all three.

To start with, you can to go to the books page. To select a book you click on “Want to Read” directly below the picture of the book cover. Then, from the book page:
* You can hover your curser over the little green picture that looks like books right next to the “Want to Read” icon. This will cause a drop down menu to appear and you simply check off the shelf that you have assigned to the challenge.
* If you have already read the book or added it to your “to-read” shelf, then below the book information there will be a section titled “My Review”. Within this section, you can see what bookshelves you have added the book to and just under the list of bookshelves you can click on “edit shelves”, which will cause a drop down menu to appear and again you simply check off the shelf that you have assigned to the challenge.

If you have already added the book to your bookshelf, you can add it to the challenge from your bookshelf:
* If you look under the column titled “shelves” next to the book you want to add to the challenge, it will list the shelves that the book is currently on. Just below the list of shelves, you can click “edit” and a drop down menu to appear and again you simply check off the shelf that you have assigned to the challenge.

Joining the Challenge
Next go to the challenge page HERE
Enter your goal and the bookshelf to which you'll add the nominees and award winners (the one you just created above). Make sure to copy the shelf name exactly. Save again!

Participating
This is the best part! To participate all you need to do is read the books you have chosen! After you have read a book, make sure to mark it as read.

If the book is marked as read between January 1st, 2020 (yes 2020 is correct, because you already might have read some of the nominees / winners) and December 31st 2021 and you have added it to your challenge shelf, it will automatically count toward this challenge.

Trouble-shooting
If you read your book and it did not count towards your challenge, there are a couple of things you can do.

First, make sure that you have added the book to your assigned shelf.

Next, make sure that you have set the “read” date accurately. When you mark a book as read you can set the date. Usually, it will automatically assign the read date to the day you mark it off, but occasionally this doesn’t happen. If you’re having trouble, just make sure you set the “read” date to “today”.

2020 Choice Awards List
The winners will become this group's monthly reads.
The rest of the nominees will be voted by the group for additional monthly reads. Both winners and nominees will go towards the group's yearly challenge.

BEST FICTION - Winner: The Midnight Library

A Burning
American Dirt
Anxious People
Big Summer
Dear Edward
Homeland Elegies
If I Had Your Face
In an Instant
Luster
Migrations
My Dark Vanessa
Oona Out of Order
Real Life
Such a Fun Age
The Death of Vivek Oji
The Girl with the Louding Voice
The Glass Hotel
Transcendent Kingdom
Writers & Lovers

BEST MYSTERY & THRILLER - Winner: The Guest List

All the Devils Are Here (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #16)
And Now She's Gone
Blacktop Wasteland
Confessions on the 7:45
First Girl Gone (Charlotte Winters #1)
Home Before Dark
Long Bright River
One by One
The Boy from the Woods
The Devil and the Dark Water
The Night Swim
The Searcher
The Sun Down Motel
The Wives
Troubled Blood (Cormoran Strike #5)
Unspeakable Things
When No One is Watching
Winter Counts
You Are Not Alone

BEST HISTORICAL FICTION - Winner: The Vanishing Half

A Long Petal of the Sea
Betty
Code Name Hélène
Deacon King Kong
Hamnet
Magic Lessons (Practical Magic #0.1)
Shuggie Bain
The Book of Longings
The Book of Lost Friends
The Book of Lost Names
The Evening and the Morning (Kingsbridge #0)
The Henna Artist (The Henna Artist #1)
The Jane Austen Society
The Mirror & the Light (Thomas Cromwell #3)
The Night Watchman
The Paper Daughters of Chinatown
The Pull of the Stars
Utopia Avenue
Where the Lost Wander

BEST FANTASY - Winner: House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1)

A Deadly Education (The Scholomance #1)
Age of Empyre (Legends of the First Empire, #6)
Battle Ground (The Dresden Files, #17)
Black Sun (Between Earth and Sky #1)
Peace Talks (The Dresden Files, #16)
Piranesi
Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive, #4)
Smoke Bitten (Mercy Thompson, #12)
The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire #1)
The Burning God (The Poppy War, #3)
The City We Became (Great Cities #1)
The Empire of Gold (Daevabad Trilogy, #3)
The Empress of Salt and Fortune (The Singing Hills Cycle #1)
The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice #1)
The House in the Cerulean Sea
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
The Once and Future Witches
The Trouble with Peace (The Age of Madness, #2)
Wintersteel (Cradle #8)

BEST ROMANCE - Winner: From Blood and Ash (Blood and Ash, #1)

A Rogue of One's Own (A League of Extraordinary Women #2)
Beach Read
Boyfriend Material
Emerald Blaze (Hidden Legacy, #5)
Hands Down
In a Holidaze
In Five Years
One to Watch
Party of Two (The Wedding Date, #5)
Regretting You
Something to Talk About
Spoiler Alert (Spoiler Alert #1)
Sweet Temptation
Take a Hint, Dani Brown (The Brown Sisters #2)
The Happy Ever After Playlist (The Friend Zone #2)
The Switch
The Two Lives of Lydia Bird
You Deserve Each Other
You Had Me at Hola

BEST SCIENCE FICTION - Winner: To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor (The Carls, #2)
Age of Deception (The Firebird Chronicles #2)
Agency (Jackpot #2)
Axiom's End (Noumena #1)
Harrow the Ninth (The Locked Tomb #2)
Hench
Network Effect (The Murderbot Diaries, #5)
Riot Baby
The Book of Koli (Rampart Trilogy #1)
The End of October
The First Sister (The First Sister Trilogy, #1)
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
The Last Emperox (The Interdependency, #3)
The Mother Code
The New Wilderness
The Relentless Moon (Lady Astronaut #3)
The Space Between Worlds
The Vanished Birds
Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick (Zoey Ashe #2)

BEST HORROR - Winner: Mexican Gothic

Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre
Houndings of Hell (a CoC spin-off Novella)
If It Bleeds
Lakewood
Malorie (Bird Box #2)
Plain Bad Heroines
Ring Shout
Secret Santa
Survivor Song
Tender Is the Flesh
The Bright Lands
The Ghost Tree
The Hollow Ones (Blackwood Tapes #1)
The Hollow Places
The Loop
The Only Good Indians
The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires
The Year of the Witching
World Departed (Cascadia #1)

BEST HUMOUR - Winner: Strange Planet (Strange Planet #1)

#VERYFAT #VERYBRAVE: The Fat Girl's Guide to Being #Brave and Not a Dejected, Melancholy, Down-in-the-Dumps Weeping Fat Girl in a Bikini
A Very Punchable Face
Becoming Duchess Goldblatt: A Memoir
Born to Be Public
F*ck Your Diet: And Other Things My Thighs Tell Me
God-Level Knowledge Darts: Life Lessons from the Bronx
Is This Anything?
Make Russia Great Again
Overstated: A Coast-To-Coast Roast of the 50 States
Shakespeare for Squirrels (Fool #3)
Shit, Actually: The Definitive, 100% Objective Guide to Modern Cinema
Solutions and Other Problems
Squeeze Me (Skink #8)
The New One: Painfully True Stories from a Reluctant Dad
The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s: An Oral History
This Is Major: Notes on Diana Ross, Dark Girls, and Being Dope
Trixie and Katya's Guide to Modern Womanhood
Wow, No Thank You.
You're Doing Great!: And Other Reasons to Stay Alive

BEST NONFICTION - Winner: Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You

Beyond the Gender Binary
Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close
Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation
Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies: And Other Rituals to Fix Your Life, from Someone Who's Been There
Clanlands: Whisky, Warfare, and a Scottish Adventure Like No Other
Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life
Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Spiral of Toxic Thoughts
Here for It; Or, How to Save Your Soul in America: Essays
Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family
Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot
Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor
Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
Rage
Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope
Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope
Trust: America's Best Chance
We Keep the Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence
Why We Can't Sleep: Women's New Midlife Crisis
You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

BEST MEMOIR & AUTOBIOGRAPHY - Winner: A Promised Land

All Boys Aren't Blue
Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America
Everything Beautiful in Its Time: Seasons of Love and Loss
Greenlights
Hollywood Park: A Memoir
I Have Something to Tell You
Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir
Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A True (as Told to Me) Story
Notes on a Silencing: A Memoir
Open Book
The Adventurer's Son
The Answer Is…: Reflections on My Life
The Beauty in Breaking: A Memoir
The Meaning of Mariah Carey
The Rural Diaries: Love, Livestock, and Big Life Lessons Down on Mischief Farm
Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man
Uncanny Valley
Untamed
When Time Stopped: A Memoir of My Father's War and What Remains

BEST HISTORY & BIOGRAPHY - Winner: Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz
A Black Women's History of the United States
Agent Sonya: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy
Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own
Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the 116 Days that Changed the World
Dead Famous: An Unexpected History of Celebrity from Bronze Age to Silver Screen
Fight of the Century: Writers Reflect on 100 Years of Landmark ACLU Cases
His Truth Is Marching on: John Lewis and the Power of Hope
How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America
Humankind: A Hopeful History
Killing Crazy Horse: The Merciless Indian Wars in America
Overground Railroad: The Green Book & Roots of Black Travel in America
The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power
The Deviant's War: The Homosexual vs. the United States of America
The House of Kennedy
The Lincoln Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill America's 16th President⁠—and Why It Failed
The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz
Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots
You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington

BEST SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY - Winner: A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future

Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All
Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
How to Argue With a Racist: What Our Genes Do (and Don't) Say About Human Difference
No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram
Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl
Some Assembly Required: Decoding Four Billion Years of Life, from Ancient Fossils to DNA
That Wild Country: An Epic Journey through the Past, Present, and Future of America's Public Lands
The Bird Way: A New Look at How Birds Talk, Work, Play, Parent, and Think
The Book of Eels: Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World
The End of Everything
The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis
The Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move
The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here
T-Minus AI: Humanity’s Countdown to Artificial Intelligence and the New Pursuit of Global Power
Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe
Vesper Flights
Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life
Why We Swim

BEST FOOD & COOKBOOKS - Winner: Modern Comfort Food: A Barefoot Contessa Cookbook

100 Cookies: The Baking Book for Every Kitchen, with Classic Cookies, Novel Treats, Brownies, Bars, and More
Dessert Person: Recipes and Guidance for Baking with Confidence
Dirt: Adventures, with Family, in the Kitchens of Lyon, Looking for the Origins of French Cooking
Eat a Peach
Evolving Vegan: Deliciously Diverse Recipes from North America's Best Plant-Based Eateries—for Anyone Who Loves Food
Falastin: A Cookbook
Frontier Follies: Adventures in Marriage & Motherhood in the Middle of Nowhere
Gordon Ramsay Quick and Delicious: 100 Recipes to Cook in 30 Minutes or Less
Magnolia Table, Volume 2: A Collection of Recipes for Gathering
Nourish Me Home: 125 Soul-Sustaining Recipes Inspired by the Elements
Oh She Glows for Dinner: Nourishing Plant-Based Meals to Keep You Glowing
Ottolenghi Flavor: A Cookbook
Outlander Kitchen: To the New World and Back Again: The Second Official Outlander Companion Cookbook
Skinnytaste Meal Prep: Healthy Make-Ahead Meals and Freezer Recipes to Simplify Your Life: A Cookbook
The Defined Dish: Whole30 Endorsed, Healthy and Wholesome Weeknight Recipes
The Honeysuckle Cookbook: 100 Healthy, Feel-Good Recipes to Live Deliciously
True Comfort: More Than 100 Cozy Recipes Free of Gluten and Refined Sugar
Vegetable Kingdom: The Abundant World of Vegan Recipes
Wine Girl: The Obstacles, Humiliations, and Triumphs of America's Youngest Sommelier

BEST GRAPHIC NOVELS & COMICS - Winner: Heartstopper: Volume Three (Heartstopper #3)

Almost American Girl: An Illustrated Memoir
Basketful of Heads
Check, Please!, Book 2: Sticks & Scones
Dancing at the Pity Party
Fangirl, Vol. 1: The Manga
Fangs
Fence, Vol. 4: Rivals
Harleen
I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf
Monstress, Vol. 5: Warchild
Sapiens: A Graphic History: The Birth of Humankind
Teen Titans: Beast Boy (Teen Titans #2)
The Adventure Zone: Petals to the Metal (The Adventure Zone Graphic Novels #3)
The Fire Never Goes Out: A Memoir in Pictures
The Low, Low Woods (Hill House Comics #3)
The Magic Fish
The Sacrifice of Darkness
The Times I Knew I Was Gay
When Stars Are Scattered

BEST POETRY - Winner: Dearly: New Poems

All Along You Were Blooming: Thoughts for Boundless Living
Break Your Glass Slippers (You Are Your Own Fairy Tale, #1)
Cast Away: Poems for Our Time
Finna: Poems
home body
Homie
How to Fly: In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons
On the Horizon
Poems for the End of the World
Postcolonial Love Poem
Romance or the End
Sorry I Haven't Texted You Back
Sweetdark
Swimming Lessons: Poems
The Girl and the Goddess: Stories and Poems of Divine Wisdom
Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass
Whale Day: And Other Poems
What Kind of Woman: Poems
Without: Body, Name, Country

BEST DEBUT NOVEL - Winner: Such a Fun Age

A Burning
Axiom's End (Noumena, #1)
Cemetery Boys
How Much of These Hills Is Gold
Luster
My Dark Vanessa
One to Watch
Raybearer (Raybearer, #1)
Real Life
Shuggie Bain
The Bone Shard Daughter
The First Sister (The First Sister Trilogy, #1)
The Girl with the Louding Voice
The Henna Artist (The Henna Artist #1)
The Jane Austen Society
The Year of the Witching
Valentine
Winter Counts
You Deserve Each Other

BEST YOUNG ADULT FICTION - Winner: Clap When You Land

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder #1)
Beyond the Break
Darius the Great Deserves Better (Darius the Great, #2)
Felix Ever After
Furia
Grown
Majesty (American Royals, #2)
One of Us Is Next (One of Us Is Lying, #2)
Only Mostly Devastated
Punching the Air
The Gravity of Us
The Hand on the Wall (Truly Devious #3)
The Henna Wars
The Inheritance Games (The Inheritance Games #1)
This Is My America
Today Tonight Tomorrow
Tweet Cute
Yes No Maybe So
You Should See Me in a Crown

BEST YOUNG ADULT FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION - Winner: The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air, #3)

A Song of Wraiths and Ruin (A Song of Wraiths and Ruin, #1)
All the Stars and Teeth (All the Stars and Teeth #1)
Aurora Burning (The Aurora Cycle, #2)
Cemetery Boys
Chain of Gold (The Last Hours, #1)
Children of Virtue and Vengeance (Legacy of Orïsha, #2)
Cinderella Is Dead
Fable (Fable #1)
Girl, Serpent, Thorn
Legendborn (Legendborn #1)
Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5)
Raybearer (Raybearer, #1)
Return of the Thief (The Queen's Thief, #6)
Starsight (Skyward #2)
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games #0)
The Extraordinaries (The Extraordinaries #1)
The Kingdom of Back
The Shadows Between Us
These Violent Delights (These Violent Delights #1)

BEST MIDDLE GRADE & CHILDREN'S - Winner: The Tower of Nero (The Trials of Apollo, #5)

A Tale of Witchcraft... (A Tale of Magic, #2)
Ali Cross (Ali Cross #1)
Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes (Pandava Quartet #3)
Before the Ever After
Clean Getaway
Efrén Divided
Fighting Words
From the Desk of Zoe Washington
Ghost Squad
Here in the Real World
Hollowpox: The Hunt for Morrigan Crow (Nevermoor #3)
King and the Dragonflies
Lizzy Albright and the Attic Window (Lizzy Albright, #1)
One True King (The School for Good and Evil: The Camelot Years, #3)
Race to the Sun
The List of Things That Will Not Change
The One and Only Bob (The One and Only Ivan #2)
Unlocked (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #8.5)
We Dream of Space

BEST PICTURE BOOKS - Winner: Antiracist Baby

Bedtime Bonnet
Bird Hugs
Coronavirus: A Book for Children
Dewdrop
Grandma's Gardens
I Am Every Good Thing
Julián at the Wedding
Just Like Me
Sweet Child o' Mine
The Cool Bean (The Bad Seed, #3)
The Oldest Student: How Mary Walker Learned to Read
The Seed of Compassion: Lessons from the Life and Teachings of His Holiness the Dalai Lama
The Serious Goose
The World Needs More Purple People
Think Outside the Box
This Book Is Gray
We Are Water Protectors
We Will Rock Our Classmates
Wild Symphony

As always, the above is a LOT of books to catalogue, so please do let me know if there are any mistakes in the list!

The yearly challenge for next year will be up soon. Now posted

Thanks Lynn! That's amazing

Challenge is posted here: https://www.goodreads.com/challenges/... Come join the fun!

Ok, I finally went through the list and I have 43 on my challenge shelf. That's actually the least number I've ever had since I first started doing the challenge. That will probably change once we know the winners. I may add some to my tbr just because we are reading them as a group. I may also remove some that we don't decide to read as a group if they are unavailable through my library and/or I decide they aren't interesting enough to me. I have already read 7 and 16 are currently on my maybe read shelf instead of my tbr.

Has anyone else added any books just because they are award nominees?

Yup, I always add them to my list as I work my way through putting the above list together. I've put waaaaay more on the list this year, at 121! lol

I've read already read 15 of them.

Wow, 121! That's a lot. Seems like the selection this year suited you well!

15 is a great start too. You must 'ahead of schedule' to meet your goal. I'm already a book behind. lol

Wow that's impressive. I didn't even have time to vote for the semi finals, can you believe it?

Savanes wrote: "Wow that's impressive. I didn't even have time to vote for the semi finals, can you believe it?"

The semi-finals are going on now, so you can still vote for the finals. :)

Wow Lynn!
Thanks for getting this up so fast.
I will need to take some time and look. I haven't read that many. I always think I am not that interested in most of them, but that changes once I hear people talking about them and we vote for non winners.

Thanks Lynn! You did this so quickly.

Hello everyone! I am already preparing for a new reading challenge with the https://freebooksummary.com/category/we, I always read summaries here and choose interesting books for myself. The first book on the list is this We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, have any of you already read it? I would love to discuss it after reading it!