2018 Group Read Calendar

[Lynn, Moderator]

2018 Calendar


January
Winner - Fiction: Little Fires Everywhere

Series Read - The Sword of Summer (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, #1) 

Additional Nominee Read - Fantasy: The Bear and the Nightingale


February
Winner - Debut Author & Young Adult: The Hate U Give

Series Read - The Hammer of Thor (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, #2) 

Additional Nominee Read - Science Fiction: All Our Wrong Todays


March
Winner - Middle Grade: The Ship of the Dead (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard #3) 

Series Read - Wonder
(Technically we know it's not really a series read for the Picture Book winner, however as this is the original book it would be a shame not to read this wonderful book first)

Additional Nominee Read - Horror: Final Girls


April
Winner - Mystery & Thriller: Into the Water

Winner - Picture Book: We're All Wonders

Additional Nominee Read - Fiction: Beartown


May
Winner - YA Fantasy: A Court of Wings and Ruin (A Court of Thorns and Roses #3)
Note: As the group has already read book #1 and #2, we will not be reading them again this year.
Book #1 - https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Book #2 - https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Winner - Poetry: The Sun and Her Flowers

Additional Nominee Read - Debut Author: We Were the Lucky Ones

Additional Nominee Read - Science & Technology: Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History


June
Winner - Science Fiction: Artemis

Winner - History & Biography: The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women

Additional Nominee Read - Young Adult: Turtles All the Way Down

Additional Nominee Read - Food & Cookbooks: 5 Ingredients – Quick Easy Food


July
Winner - Memoir & Autobiography: What Happened

Winner - Graphic Novels & Comics: Big Mushy Happy Lump (Sarah's Scribbles #2)
Note: Group has already read #1 https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Additional Nominee Read - Middle Grade: Beauty and the Beast: Lost in a Book

Additional Nominee Read - Picture Books: She Persisted: 13 American Women Who Changed the World


August
Winner - Romance: Without Merit

Winner - Non Fiction: How to Be a Bawse: A Guide to Conquering Life

Additional Nominee Read - Humour: One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter

Additional Nominee Read - Poetry: Long Way Down


September
Winner - Historical Fiction: Before We Were Yours

Winner - Science & Technology: Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

Additional Nominee Read - YA Fantasy: Caraval and Scythe (It was a tie!)

Additional Nominee Read - History & Biography: Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI


October
Winner - Horror: Sleeping Beauties

Winner - Food & Cookbooks: The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Come and Get It! Simple, Scrumptious Recipes for Crazy Busy Lives

Additional Nominee Read - Mystery & Thriller: Never Let You Go

Additional Nominee Read - Memoir & Autobiography: Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body


November
Winner - Humour: Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls, and Everything in Between

Additional Nominee Read - Romance: The Duchess Deal

Additional Nominee Read - Graphic Novels & Comics: Wonder Woman, Volume 1: The Lies and Saga, Vol. 7 (another tie!)


December
Winner - Fantasy: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay

Additional Nominee Read - Historical Fiction: Pachinko

Additional Nominee Read - Non Fiction: The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit

[Kristie, Moderator]

Woot! Calendar is done! There's a few I'd like to read.

[Lynn, Moderator]

What is everyone looking forward to reading?

I've been trying to fit in The Hate U Give for a few months now, so that's definitely at the top of my list.

Also Artemis and Without Merit

There are a few more I'll read of the winners, but they are my top 3.

[Kristie, Moderator]

I definitely want to get to Little Fires Everywhere, The Hate U Give, Wonder, Into the Water, and We're All Wonders. I'll probably read Sleeping Beauties too. There are a couple others that I'd like to read, but they're more of the 'if I have time' kind of books. I'm excited about the additional reads too. I think I like this schedule better than last year's.

I've already read Before We Were Yours and it was very good!

[Janina]

The Hate U Give is a very good book! Certainly a deserving winner!

I'm going to read Artemis, but have heard from many people that it's not terribly good. Might give Into the Water and Before We Were Yours a go as well. And maybe What happened .. but maybe not. I don't know. I've read the first Magnus Chase which wasn't too bad, so I may read those.

[Reija]

I think I'll try to read the most of winners and also group voting winners.

[Kirsten]

No huge series this year, mods must be happy!

[Savanes]

I have many many want to read in the winners and nominees list. :)

[Lynn, Moderator]

Kirsten wrote: "No huge series this year, mods must be happy!"

It is a bit of a relief! lol

[Vicki]

I just joined and wish I'd known about this sooner! Thank you for you HARD and time-consuming work, Lynn!

Question: Is there a way to know which books are going to be nominees? I don't know the process. Is there a way we can nominate a book before the nominations list comes out?

[Kristie, Moderator]

Vicki - We don't know which books will be nominees until they are announced. Also, you can't nominate books until after the first round of nominees has been announced. When you vote in that first round, write-ins are allowed. Other than that, you just get to vote.

[Kristie, Moderator]

Sorry, I may have misunderstood your question. My response above is for the Choice Awards voting. For our group voting, the nominees are the nominees from the choice awards. We do not nominate those, there is a list already, which you can see here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Vicki]

Kristie wrote: "Sorry, I may have misunderstood your question. My response above is for the Choice Awards voting. For our group voting, the nominees are the nominees from the choice awards. We do not nominate thos..."

No, you answered the intent of my question. :) Good to know on both accounts though. Thank you.

[Lynn, Moderator]

As to how the books get chosen, here is Goodreads official blurb on it:

Quote: "We analyze statistics from the millions of books added, rated, and reviewed on Goodreads to nominate 15 books in each category. Opening round official nominees must have an average rating of 3.50 or higher. Write-in votes may be cast for eligible books with any average rating, and write-in votes will be weighted by the book's Goodreads statistics to determine the top five books to be added as official nominees in the Semifinal Round. A book may be nominated in no more than one genre category, but can also be nominated in the Goodreads Author category. Only one book in a series may be nominated per category. An author may receive multiple nominations within a single category if he or she has more than one eligible series or more than one eligible stand-alone book."

It's pretty vague, and all of us are still clueless as to how each book gets picked :)

[Kirsten]

I really think they should somehow program the voting so that you have to have written a review on a book to vote for it.

[Janina]

I honestly don't think that would help at all. Half of the reviews of the Harry Potter screenplay talk about how awesome the film and how dreamy Eddie Redmayne is ...

Without having done any sort of statistical analysis, I'd say there is a really strong correlation between the number of ratings and the number of votes for every single nominated book. If you add the release date and something like number of google hits associated with the author, I'm sure you can predict the winners with absolute certainty in every category.

The only thing that could change this, is to only allow people to vote in categories where they have read all of the nominated books. Which would likely end up in just about 10 or so people participating in most of the categories ;) I certainly couldn't vote in any of them ...

[Kirsten]

The first time I voted, I voted for the books I most wanted to read. Now, I will only vote on books I've read.

I don't think making people to read all nominated books. I made an express effort to read more 2017 books this year, and I still only had 3 or 4 books on the first list. Insane!

Why wouldn't it work to require them to have written a review to be able to vote for a book? I think at the very least, that will solve part of the problem.

As a popularity contest, one can't expect the "best" book to win. After all, look at how many people are still willing to vote Roy Moore in Alabama?

[Janina]

I don't think it would make sense to require people to have read all nominations. No one would be able to vote.

And, the "best" book is not always the same to everyone .. I don't like most of what respected authorities consider "best" books, i.e. those winning book awards/prizes such as Pulitzer etc. Those aren't the best books to me even if there may be tremendous literary value in them (according to some).

But, the whole voting process here is pretty much nonsensical. Goodreads could just go ahead and select the books with the highest number of ratings for any fictional category and the books with the most popular author and/or topic in social media for non-fiction ones. Of course, it's a popularity contest, but it's kind of like holding a vote where the result is already predetermined.

I tend to vote for the book that I think is the best (to me). Which may be one I've read before or one I want to read and am certain I would love. But, some books slip under my radar. E.g. I've read quite a few of the YA fantasy nominees this year, but I hadn't read Strange the Dreamer yet, nor did the description sound like something I'd love. But, I'm currently around 25% in and it's by far the best and most amazingly wonderful YA fantasy I've read in at least a decade. So, I definitely didn't vote for the best YA fantasy novel even though I did vote for a book I had read and considered best compared to the others I had read so far. (best as in what I consider best).

Anyways, it is a popularity contest which is fine. I just don't think requiring reviews would change that at all. Just make it more pronounced.

[Kirsten]

I'd be more interested in breaking up the categories. Some of the categories are too broad and get overloaded by things.

[Janina]

Yes. The categories are odd. I agree.

[Kirsten]

I think they should have a special one for celebrity authors so the other categories aren't overloaded.

[Janina]

Yes, that would be nice. Especially Non-Fiction and Humor.

And hiring someone to go through the nominations and edit based on category would help a lot too. There are so many books ending up nominated and even winning that quite clearly don't fit the category.

Oh well, it is what it is ... at least the categories I'm less interested in had a whole bunch of nominees I had never heard of and some of them ended up on my to-read list.

I can't wrap my head around the bawse thing though .. I even watched a few youtube videos of that girl (that I had never heard of before). I guess I'm just too old .. I don't get it.

[Vicki]

What does TBC mean?

[Lynn, Moderator]

To be confirmed

[Vicki]

Ok thank you. :)

[Vicki]

Sorry to be a pest but I’m new to this group & trying to figure things out. The calendar has various books each month. Is there a start date? Discussion thread? Anything like that?

[Lynn, Moderator]

Each book starts on the first of the scheduled month, and yes they have their own discussion threads

[Vicki]

Okay. Thanks, Lynn.

[Lynn, Moderator]

No problem

[Kristie, Moderator]

Can't believe we're only about a month away from voting again!

[Savanes]

I knooooow me neither.

[Kristie, Moderator]

Voting is open!!

[Savanes]

Yay

[Lynn, Moderator]

Kristie wrote: "Voting is open!!"

That came around quicker than I expected! I had in my head it was going to be next week .....

I'm going to open up a seperate thread to discuss the voting.

[Kristie, Moderator]

Round two of voting starts tomorrow! This week went by so quickly! I can’t wait to see which new books are added.

[Kristie, Moderator]

I just checked and voting actually starts 11pm tonight pacific time! I wasn't really planning to stay upload tonight, but maybe...

[Savanes]

Talking about fast, final round started!

[Kristie, Moderator]

I know!! I was up late last night and voted already. There aren’t many books I’ve read in there.

[Kristie, Moderator]

Actually, there were a couple genres that were good for me. I had 3 five star reads still left in the mystery/thriller category, which was hard to choose from, and I've read 8 out of the 10 best of the best books. I've also read 3 of the debuts, but I didn't love any of them. I picked the one I thought was the best of the three.