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Announcing the Nominees of the 2014 Goodreads Choice Awards! It's Time to Vote!
Vote now in the Opening Round! »All year you've been devouring books and rating them on Goodreads. Some of your favorite authors have released new blockbusters. Some quiet debuts have become smash hits. And now it's all reflected in the nominations for the 2014 Goodreads Choice Awards—the only major book awards decided by readers!
How did we arrive at the 15 different nominees in 20 categories ranging from Fiction to Fantasy to Food & Cookbooks to Young Adult Fiction? Lots and lots of numbers! Instead of relying on experts or judges, we analyzed statistics from the 275 million books added, rated, and reviewed on Goodreads in 2014.
We're so excited to congratulate all of the nominees! There are some epic match-ups in this year's list. In Best Memoir, the riveting true stories range from Esther Earl, the inspiration for teen bestseller The Fault in Our Stars, to North Korean defector Jang Jin-Sung. Mystery & Thriller has heavy hitters, with Stephen King going against "Robert Galbraith" (a.k.a J.K. Rowling). In History & Biography, it's basketball god Michael Jordan versus an unlikely opponent, President Calvin Coolidge. Best Fiction, one of our most-watched categories, is anyone's game, with debut authors like Nadia Hashimi and Mira Jacob ready to take on established masters like Marilynne Robinson, Haruki Murakami, David Mitchell, and Margaret Atwood. And double props to our double nominees, who include Roxane Gay, Gene Luen Yang, and B.J. Novak!
Of course, with hundreds of thousands of books published in 2014, no nominee list could cover everything. We also accept write-in votes during the Opening Round to ensure that you can vote for exactly the book you want!
You have three chances to vote. The Opening Round lasts until November 8. Vote now to make sure your favorite books make it into the Semifinals (November 10 - 15) and Finals (November 17 - 24).
Vote for the best books of 2014! »Comments Showing 51-87 of 87 (87 new)
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M.J. wrote: "Ayman wrote: "With all due respect to people who says that it is OK that the award is US-centric.. have a look at the "about us" page which conveys an "international" intent to the website, so it i..."Thanks for the reply! I agree with your sentiments.
I don't believe including other countries will make things more complicated for GR staff; It is impossible to look at each individual title being released anyway, so it is mostly patterns, highest grossing votes, etc. that they look at and examine (they must have a formula for that)..
Yes, many of the titles being nominated are deserving, but the way I feel about it is that if I cast my vote I'd be disregarding the other deserving titles that weren't even considered! It pains me because there are many talented authors from Europe and Australia and even non-English speaking countries who do publish books but not necessarily in the US.
That is why I'm voicing my opinion here, which I hope GR will consider in the future; they need to open up the award or at least introduce another award for non-US published books.. Maybe they are getting pressured by corporation and therefore their decision. Who knows.
Too bad all 4 of the books I found great this year are fantasies, so I could only vote for half of them. While the other categories have nothing I found great.
I just read the "2014 Rules & Eligibility" and about the eligibility of the books it says "Books published in the United States in English, including works in translation and other significant rereleases, between November 17, 2013, and November 15, 2014, are eligible for the 2014 Goodreads Choice Awards."Don't you find a little strange and tremendously unfair that books published between November 9 and 17 are eligible for this year when the opening round closes on November 8?
Not to mention that it also does not make much sense to include books that were published less than a month before competing against the others because it's highly probable that very few people had the chance to read them yet.
I suppose it is too late now the change the rules for this year but I suggest reconsidering them for future awards because a lot of books might be neglected because of this timing problem.
Liz wrote: "Just fyi. Diana Gabaldon's amazing novel Written in my Own Heart's Blood (eighth book in the Outlander series which is also a tv series on Starz) is NOT a romance novel. It is closer to historica..."I noticed that, too, but many books fall into more than one genre. With the time travel element, Gabaldon's series also meets the definition of "Fantasy." The Harry Dresden books by Jim Butcher could be mysteries or horror as well as fantasy. Decisions need to be arbitrary.
Which brings me to my pet complaint this year! What happened to the Paranormal category? It received nearly 110,000 votes in the final round last year which put it in the top 5 categories for participation. I think expansion beyond the 20 categories would have been the better solution if someone wanted that Business Book category so desperately. They could have used some of the other suggestions, too, such as Short Fiction. A category for Adventure would have also been useful since books that include things such as military operations and Espionage don't really share much with Mystery and Crime novels.
I really am disappointed that so much Urban Fantasy and Paranormal has been folded into the Fantasy category this year, which happens to have been a terrific year for traditional and epic fantasy--I think the popularity of Urban Fantasy will totally overshadow books that would have received more attention otherwise.
Why cant I write-in The Fields Where Soldiers Play: Book On..., by B.J. Beck -in the fantasy category? I get a note that it is ineligible but it seems to follow all the criteria?
Jennifer wrote: "Why cant I write-in The Fields Where Soldiers Play: Book On..., by B.J. Beck -in the fantasy category? I get a note that it is ineligible but it seems to follow all the criteria?"Since I don't have access to the criteria, I can't answer that, but think it's a really good question. One of my issues with GoodReads has been a lack of "transparency" in defining all of this stuff!!!
And why haven't precise criteria been posted somewhere? GoodReads is particularly effective at blocking questions about procedures and practices.
"Don't you find a little strange and tremendously unfair that books published between November 9 and 17 are eligible for this year when the opening round closes on November 8?"I complain about this every year actually, and it never changes.
Jennifer wrote: "Why cant I write-in The Fields Where Soldiers Play: Book On..., by B.J. Beck -in the fantasy category? I get a note that it is ineligible but it seems to follow all the criteria?"try now - there were like 4 different files for the book
Jason wrote: ""Don't you find a little strange and tremendously unfair that books published between November 9 and 17 are eligible for this year when the opening round closes on November 8?"I complain about th..."
When was the latest feature they actually implemented based on users' feedback? And how many of those they ever did?
Ayman wrote: "Jason wrote: ""Don't you find a little strange and tremendously unfair that books published between November 9 and 17 are eligible for this year when the opening round closes on November 8?"I com..."
I commented about this on the Feedback group two weeks ago (just so that it would be considered before voting started) and nothing (no response).
Cress will win for YA Fantasy and Science Fiction!!! >:D
Janet wrote: "Liz wrote: "Just fyi. Diana Gabaldon's amazing novel Written in my Own Heart's Blood (eighth book in the Outlander series which is also a tv series on Starz) is NOT a romance novel. It is closer ..."Yes! This!
There is such a distinctive difference between Fantasy and Paranormal that there SHOULD be separate categories for them.
I made a comment on the FantasyFaction website about this: comparing Andrews; Briggs; Harrison, or Frost, with Lawrence; Weeks; Butcher, or Bennett, is totally impossible - they write DIFFERENT genres, FFS!
Anyway, GR have made a decision, and whatever we say will probably be ignored (dammit!) :)
Carole-Ann wrote: "Janet wrote: "Liz wrote: "Just fyi. Diana Gabaldon's amazing novel Written in my Own Heart's Blood (eighth book in the Outlander series which is also a tv series on Starz) is NOT a romance novel. ..."I could see collapsing categories with lower voter participation, but the two they combined were in the top five for voting! Basically I think they should expand to 24 categories!!!
Andrea wrote: "Ayman wrote: "Jason wrote: ""Don't you find a little strange and tremendously unfair that books published between November 9 and 17 are eligible for this year when the opening round closes on Novem..."Sad to hear that..
I agree with Janet about the Paranormal/Urban Fantasy/Fantasy mess Goodreads has created. I may just end up ignoring the Choice Awards entirely.
Choosing 15 nominees by whatever non-transparent method is completely unfair. Sure, write-in votes are allowed, but in practice the award is always going to go to one of those 15 nominees. It completely kills my interest in these awards.
Farseer wrote: "Choosing 15 nominees by whatever non-transparent method is completely unfair. Sure, write-in votes are allowed, but in practice the award is always going to go to one of those 15 nominees. It compl..."I think for Round 1 they should leave it completely open, then go with what folks have nominated, from there. I know my write-in for Mystery won't get the final award, since all entries are skewed towards these 15 choices in each category. Round 2 onwards I just might ignore the Choice Awards, since I haven't read 99.9999999% of the books they chose.
Jane wrote: "I think for Round 1 they should leave it completely open, then go with what folks have nominated, from there."You're not alone. I've been talking about some of the deficiencies with the award off and on for a couple of years. And I don't think I'm particularly new to it. There are others who have been asking questions longer than me.
Here is my most recent comment...just yesterday which is basically saying exactly what you're suggesting.
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Anyway...it's too late for this year but hopefully they take some of this stuff on board next year;
Ian wrote: "Jane wrote: "I think for Round 1 they should leave it completely open, then go with what folks have nominated, from there."You're not alone. I've been talking about some of the deficiencies with..."
It looks like you've taken a lot of time and thought with your comment of yesterday. I too hope they revise their system and use some of our suggestions. I hate being told what I *should* read and for them trying to put the guilt on me for not doing so.
It is also worth mentioning that Goodreads is lying when they tell us that the nominees are chosen based on their numbers, without human intervention. If you look at the nominees in many categories you'll see a few books with a very low number of ratings compared with the other nominees in the same category and with good but not spectacular average. It's clear that those books would never have been chosen just based on their numbers (not surprisingly, those novels are about "important" issues).
It's not perfect...I'm sure I've made mistakes...I know of forgotten sub-genres...I'm sure there are reasons why some parts wouldn't work, but this is the way I think the GR Choice Awards should be organised. Preliminary Round (Green) includes all sub-genres and is write in votes or choose from your "read" books only. Goodreads does not nominate any books, nor are any books shown as the voting progresses.
(Books that progress to the next stage will be able to use "Finalist" in promotional material)
Semi-Final (Brown) the winners in the preliminary round as well as the books with the highest number of votes that didn't win to make up 16 nominations for each genre. Winner of this stage will be able to use "Best ___ book of 2014", the book that came in second will be able to use "Runner-Up Best ____ Book of 2014" in promotional material.
Final (Red) the top two books from each genre.
The thing is, most people tend to read within a few genres / categories. They don't read books from every single category mentioned in the awards. Having people who don't read non-fiction at all throwing voting in those categories (guaranteed they vote for one of the GR nominations) skews the voting and is unfair to people who are devoted to and love the category of book. For that reason (at least for the preliminary and semifinal rounds), I think it would be better to give each user 20 votes which they can use as they see fit. So if they want to vote for 20 books in one genre they can. If they want to give all 20 votes to one book, they can do that too.
Ian wrote: "It's not perfect...I'm sure I've made mistakes...I know of forgotten sub-genres...I'm sure there are reasons why some parts wouldn't work, but this is the way I think the GR Choice Awards should be..."There isn't any way to stop people from voting for books they haven't read. We keep hoping for the honor system, but ... The discussions here over the past few days have added a lot of fuel to my fires of disenchantment. This year I have voted in 13 of the 20 categories--because I'm a librarian and grandmother, I do read a lot of children's and YA books, and some nonfiction, including some that have not shown up on my personal book lists because I didn't sit down and read them "cover to cover." 3 of my votes were write-ins, and it would have been 4 if I could have gotten the system to accept a perfectly good fiction title published this past June by an award-winning author.
During the past several years, I have valued the nominations above the winners--the top slot does boil down to a popularity contest--but a lot of really terrific books have come to my notice because of their nominations. This week I found time for 2 of the best audiobooks I have listened to this year because they showed up on the category lists.
What happened to the paranormal Fantasy? Bad choice to combine fantasy genres goodreads. More genres to vote in never hurt anyone. Just gives more books a chance to shine.
Ayman wrote: "M.J. wrote: "Ayman wrote: "With all due respect to people who says that it is OK that the award is US-centric.. have a look at the "about us" page which conveys an "international" intent to the web..."I hope the message gets through! A few people that support my writing have voted for me anyway, despite the fact that I'm from Australia. Perhaps if enough people vote for books they want, outside of the US, they will have to either throw it open to more countries or - why not blow it out of the water and make a special Goodreads International Choice Awards? That sounds amazing to me, and I'm sure would lead to so much extra marketing for Goodreads around the world.
Quite a few avid readers I know still don't use GR much or even at all.
M.J. wrote: "A few people that support my writing have voted for me anyway, despite the fact that I'm from Australia."My understanding is so long as the books are available in the U.S. they are eligible. I haven't looked at the eligibility criteria for a while but I have that in my head. If it's the case, I think your books are eligible.
Well...as expected, despite being quite well read within my chosen genres...mostly romance, fantasy, mystery and historical fiction I have only read a single book out of the four categories. What's with Janet Evanovich being a semi-finalist? I'm the first to admit One for the Money (Stephanie Plum Book 1) is brilliant! I actually persevered with the series till maybe book 17 or 18, but everyone I know has said this series died 10 books ago....sometime around when she started banging both Joe and Ranger.
And there it was one of the 15 chosen by GR for people to vote for and it's made it to the semi-finals. Name recognition maybe?
Ian wrote: "Well...as expected, despite being quite well read within my chosen genres...mostly romance, fantasy, mystery and historical fiction I have only read a single book out of the four categories. What..."
I think a lot of folks don't read very many books in a year and stick with the bestsellers they are used to. I agree that this book was pretty weak, and I really wish that folks would keep their fingers off the vote button unless they've read at least a few in a particular category.
On looking at the original nominations I am really puzzled as to why such unknown offerings were selected. I would hate to think it, but could the nominations have been bought?
Doesn't LGBT fall under the Romance category? And if that becomes a category then I'd like to see the Romance category split further into something that separates the Young Adult and/or New Adult out of the broad category. I read some great romance books - some Christian and others not - that I'd love the chance to vote for as well.
And a second question -- is there a way to see the original list? I was late to the game and would like to be able to see the original 15 books in each category.
Cassie wrote: "Doesn't LGBT fall under the Romance category?"It's often included with romance but there are occasions when it finds itself in Fantasy. There are a few young adult books that deal with LGBT issues but I think there is a bit of resistance from the religious right at having them accepted as young adult.
Cassie wrote: "And a second question -- is there a way to see the original list? I was late to the game and would like to be able to see the original 15 books in each category."Sadly no....at least I don't think there is. I went searching for last years nominations when I first raised the GR Choice Awards in another thread but after two hours of searching the web, I could only find the finalists.
Finally!! Cassandra Clare has won in her category, Totally deserved this!
Ian wrote: "Cassie wrote: "And a second question -- is there a way to see the original list? I was late to the game and would like to be able to see the original 15 books in each category."Sadly no....at lea..."
I believe you can see all the nominees here:
https://www.goodreads.com/choiceaward...
and you can see past years full list of nominees by scrolling to the bottom of the left side menu.
Thank you! Yes I totally agree. I understand too that someone needs to manage the awards, but it's sad that they are limiting write-in's to US published works. I'm sure people are going to vote for other stuff anyway because they feel it's deserving. At least I hope they do, it might send a message.