1. A book that was nominated for or won an award in a genre you enjoy

[Laura, Celestial Sphere Mod]

We're starting off the year by celebrating the best books from our favorite genres. Whether you choose a well-known literary award or one of the many more obscure ones, pick a favorite genre and find an award that recognizes the best.

-----------------------------------
Suggestions:
Literary Fiction:
The Man Booker Prize
Carnegie Medal
Costa Book Awards
Lambda Literary Award
National Book Award
Pullitzer Price for Fiction
Women's Prize for Fiction

Historical Fiction:
Walter Scott Prize

Science Fiction and Fantasy
Comprehensive List
Nebula Award
Locus Award
The Hugo Awards

Horror
Bram Stoker Award
Shirley Jackson Award

Romance:
RITA Award

Crime Fiction:
List of Various Awards

Literary Fiction:
List of Various Awards
-----------------------------------

Optional questions:
- What are you reading for this category?
- Which award did you choose?
- Is it a winner or nominee?
- Which genre?

* The above list is only examples of genres/awards. For the sake of simplicity, many of the links focus on winners for each of the awards. But the prompt is open to nominees.

[Johanne]

Hugo Awards scifi/ fantasy: http://www.thehugoawards.org/
I found these that I want to choose from (there are lots of good ones)
The Fifth Season
Akata Warrior
No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters

This year Monstress, Vol. 2: The Blood won for best graphic story. I´ve read the first volume, the artwork is beautiful and the story captivating. I recommend.

[dalex]

Worlds Without End has comprehensive listings for about 25 genre prizes - fantasy, sci-fi, and horror.

[Tracy]

Again, trying to whittle down my physical TBR, and choose some books that I have owned for a while so I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak. Its won a bunch of awards in Australia New South Wales and New Zealand. I also added The Marrow Thieves as an option.

[Ellie]

I will probably reading something from The Kitschies. I have loads of the shortlisters on my TBR.

The Nommo Awards is a relatively new award for African speculative fiction. I thought Rosewater, last year's best novel, was excellent.

[Serendipity]

I'm aiming to read a little more non-fiction next year. I have the Sixth Extinction on my TBR and I see it was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. Decision made.

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

I'm going for YA award winners for this one... There are quite a few prizes to choose from. Focusing on the Printz Award and the The Carnegie Medal.

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys (Printz)
Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson (Printz)
Bone Gap by Laura Ruby (Carnegie)
We Are Okay by Nina LaCour (Carnegie)

[Deborah]

Assuming I can get through the sixth installment in the series by the end of this year, I think I'll probably use The Dark Tower to finish out the series. It was a nominee for the Bram Stoker Award in 2004 and winner of the British Fantasy Awards in 2005.

[Liz]

First book of the year for me! I'm leaning towards a genre that I usually don't read or have newly rediscovered - high-fantasy or thriller. These are my options, & I would love any thoughts if you've read any.

HUGO: To Say Nothing of the Dog (1999)
American Gods (2002)
The Fifth Season (2016)
WORLD FANTASY: Kafka on the Shore (2006)
AUREALIS: Sabriel (1995)
MYTHOPOEIC: The Crystal Cave (1971)
The Wood Wife (1997)
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2005 - many awards)
Uprooted (2016)
Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr (2018)
ANTHONY: Ordinary Grace (2014)

[Tracy]

I loved Uprooted!! One of my favorites last year. Sabriel is on my plan this year. I haven't read any of the others, but the fifth season caught my eye and went on my TBR this morning.

[Kathy]

I'll be reading Bury Your Dead, the 6th in the Armand Gamache series by Louise Penny. It won the Macavity Award for best mystery in 2011.

[Liz]

Tracy wrote: "I loved Uprooted!! One of my favorites last year. Sabriel is on my plan this year. I haven't read any of the others, but the fifth season caught my eye and went on my TBR this morning."

I hadn't heard of Uprooted until looking up the awards. It sounds so good! The Fifth Season keeps catching my eye too.

[Brittany]

I'm planning on doing Anansi Boys which won a Locus Award for fantasy in 2006. I've been trying to read my way through all of Neil Gaiman's works and I know I already love him as an author so I figured it would be a good start to the year.

[Ellie]

The Fifth Season is so good! And if you fall in love and want to carry on reading, the rest of the trilogy will fit other prompts (multiple perspectives, journey, speculative, NPR, bestselling genres).

[Johanne]

Good to know Ellie :)

[Sophie]

My favourite genres are as sci-fi and fantasy, so I did a quick search on listopia and found 17 options that were nominated on the Hugo, Locus, Nebula and other awards. All books I really want to read, year is going to be off on a great start! 😃

[Liz]

Ellie, that’s good to know. I keep going back to that one.

[Rachelnyc]

Liz, I’ve only read two from your list but I highly, highly recommend Jonathan Strange and I also really liked American Gods.

Adding Uprooted to my tbr now.

[Jill]

There are no crime awards listed here.

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

Jill wrote: "There are no crime awards listed here."

Jill, here's a list of awards from crime and mystery fiction. There's quite a few awards on here, and the links take you to a list of winners.

[dalex]

THIS is a rather lengthy list of awards that cover quite a lot of categories (fiction, poetry, stories, etc.) and a good bit of diversity

[Nadine in NY]

To me, "in a genre you enjoy" implies "genre fiction" not literary fiction, so I'll be reading either a Hugo award winner (N.K. Jemisin!) or a RITA award winner.

I'll probably read one of The Fifth Season books - I think I can work it out so that each book in the series fulfills a 2019 Challenge category.

[Nadine in NY]

Ah, I see Ellie has already pointed that out!! :-) great minds ...

[Pam]

I'm going to start off 2019 by reading in order. Since I like sci-fi, I plan to start with All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders, the 2017 Nebula award winner for novel.

[Jill]

Thanks. Just I thought I would say in case people thought it wasn't included

[Joanne]

Is it ok to use Goodreads Choice awards, or does it have to be something external?

[Sabrina]

I'm gonna do The Song of Achilles ! It won the women's prize for fiction

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

Joanne wrote: "Is it ok to use Goodreads Choice awards, or does it have to be something external?"

Technically, the GR Choice awards are given out in genres, so that would work. This seems to be a pretty loosely interpreted prompt.

[Kerry]

dalex wrote: "Worlds Without End has comprehensive listings for about 25 genre prizes - fantasy, sci-fi, and horror."

Thank you for posting this! I may end up reading Gone Girl that was nominated for a Shirley Jackson award in 2012.

[dalex]

There are a lot of tiny obscure book awards so it might work to go through a dozen or so titles that you are interested in and check to see if they have any prizes listed in their book info here on goodreads. Maybe you can't find anything on the lists for the Booker Prize or the Pulitzer Prize but this book you really want to read next year was nominated for the Alfred Przybyszewski Memorial Medal and that book won the Southwestern Enchilada Recognition Award.

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

dalex wrote: "There are a lot of tiny obscure book awards so it might work to go through a dozen or so titles that you are interested in and check to see if they have any prizes listed in their book info here on..."

😂

I'd read a book that won the Southwestern Enchilada Recognition Award.

[dalex]

Emily wrote: "I'd read a book that won the Southwestern Enchilada Recognition Award."

Hahaha!

[Kelly]

Planning to read Day Without End: A Novel of World War Two . I found this book searching thru lists although it is a book that I have never seen before and author i have never read. So go to show you there are just so many books out there even in the genre of books you love!!

[Angie]

I think I've narrowed down my picks to:

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor - Hugo Award
Lock In by John Scalzi - nominated for Locus Award
Neuromancer by William Gibson - Hugo Award
Redshirts by John Scalzi - Hugo Award

[Raquel (Silver Valkyrie Reads)]

I decided to go with the Hugo award for this one, since I enjoy sci-fi, but tend to read fantasy even more. Plus, I should really catch up on some of the classics instead of sticking with a couple favorite authors.

I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that a random free book I ended up with is a Hugo winner, but I guess that means I should be more excited about reading Hyperion?

It's tempting to fall back on a re-read of a teenage favorite instead though: Double Star.

[Raquel (Silver Valkyrie Reads)]

Angie wrote: "I think I've narrowed down my picks to:

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor - Hugo Award
Lock In by John Scalzi - nominated for Locus Award


I haven't read the others but Redshirts was a lot of fun. Definitely recommend it if you're a Star Trek fan.

[Jody]

If there are any nonfiction fans out there (Hey Katie!), here's the Pulitzer Nonfiction winner's list.

[Angie]

Raquel wrote: "Angie wrote: "I think I've narrowed down my picks to:

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor - Hugo Award
Lock In by John Scalzi - nominated for Locu..."

Good to hear. I've only read one Scalzi book, but I enjoyed it. And I am definitely a Star Trek Fan.

[Krissy]

Both me and my daughter will be reading:


Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay

We both enjoy fantasy and it was the winner of the Goodreads Choice Award for Fantasy (2017)

[redatt]

I enjoy scifi and I'm pretty sure I'll be reading China Mountain Zhang, Maureen F. McHugh which won the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Men's Science Fiction/Fantasy (1993). It's been on my TBR pile for far too long, now's it's chance.

[Susan]

NOS4A2

[Tracy]

Susan wrote: "NOS4A2"

This book was fantastic and one of the very few audio books I could actually pay attention to. Great choice :-)

[Rokkan]

Had me a look at the Arthur C. Clarke award, and I've had Children of Time on my TBR for a while. And someone recced it to me in discord too so... going to go with that.

[SadieReadsAgain]

I didn't pick this book for this prompt, it was a double-dip slot-in from PS, so it's not a big hitter or new. But I'm going for Special, which was a longlist nominee for the Orange prize (which is now the Women's Prize for Fiction...which suits me down to the ground) in 2003.

[Janet]

Finally going to get around to reading Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. It was a National Book Critics Circle Award Nominee for Fiction back in 2004. Which means I've been slacking...

[dalex]

Janet wrote: "Finally going to get around to reading Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. It was a National Book Critics Circle Award Nominee for Fiction back in 2004."

And about 20 other prizes! Hope you enjoy it....it's one of my all-time favorites.

[Mom2triplets04]

I'm going with Milkman by Anna Burns because I already own it. It was manbooker prize

[Amelia]

I'll be starting the year with The Lost Girls by Heather Young- nominated for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 2017.

[Sarah]

Tracy wrote: "Again, trying to whittle down my physical TBR, and choose some books that I have owned for a while so I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak. Its won a bunch of awards in Au..."

The Marrow Thieves is excellent. I will be reading it to my grade 7 class late in the school year. Providing they are all mature enough.

[Sam]

I'm starting out with the 2016 Hugo award winner, the fifth season, because n k jemisin has won a Hugo for all three books in the series so far, and I want to read them