Voting for January 2026 botm

[Kristel]

Today begins the first round of voting for botm in 2026. Our authors will be from Jose Saramago to Jan Jacob Slauerhoff.
Books over 600 pages are not included and books that have been past botm in 2024 are not included. Voting for the botm starts today and ends on the 24th when the winners will be announced.
Randomizer selection: Only books that have not been previous botm (*) in past 10 years (2016 +) will be added to the randomizer. Each book you choose that has not been previously botm in the past 10 years will be fed into the randomizer for an opportunity to be chosen by the randomizer.

Books excluded: The Reader and The Manor

HOW TO VOTE:
Please send your choices by private message to me Everyone gets one free vote. if you have participation points you can have up to 4 additional votes. Use your current participation points until 2026 is actually here. You can use them all on one choice or you can make 5 different choices. Please see how to obtain participation points in the Annual Point Challenge explanation.

José Saramago - Portugal
1. Baltasar and Blimunda
*2. The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, botm 2022
*3. The History of the Siege of Lisbon, botm 2022
4. The Double
5. Caín

Domingo Faustino Sarmiento - Argentina
6. Facundo: or Civilization and Barbarism

Jean-Paul Sartre - France
7. Nausea

George Saunders - US
*8. Pastoralia, botm 2018

Dorothy L. Sayers - UK
*9. The Nine Tailors, botm 2016
*10. Murder Must Advertise, botm 2016, 2012

Arthur Schnitzler - Austrian
11. Lieutenant Gustl or None but the Brave

Daniel Paul Schreber - Austrian
12. Memoirs of My Nervous Illness

Bruno Schulz - Ukraine
13. The Street of Crocodiles

Leonardo Sciascia - Sicily
14. To Each His Own

Walter Scott - Scotland
15. The Monastery
16. Ivanhoe, 2012 botm
17. Rob Roy

W.G. Sebald - Germany
*18. Austerlitz, botm 2020
*19. The Rings of Saturn, botm 2022
20. The Emigrants
21. Vertigo

Anna Seghers - Germany
22. Transit

Hubert Selby Jr. - US
23. Requiem for a Dream

Will Self - UK
24. How the Dead Live
25. Great Apes

Meša Selimović - Bosnia/Herzegovina
26. Death and the Dervish

Sam Selvon - Trinidad/Tobago
27. The Lonely Londoners

Ousmane Sembène - Senegal
28. God's Bits of Wood

Victor Serge - Belgium
29. The Case of Comrade Tulayev

Shahan Shahnour - Turkey
30. Retreat without song

Akhil Sharma - India
31. An Obedient Father

Lao She - China
32. Rickshaw Boy

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - England
33. Frankenstein: The 1818 Text, botm 2010, 2012

Carol Shields- US/Canada
*34. Unless, botm 2018
35. The Stone Diaries, 2014 botm

Nevil Shute - England
36. A Town Like Alice, botm 2014

Henryk Sienkiewicz - Poland
37. Quo Vadis, botm 2012

Alan Sillitoe - UK
*38. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, 2022 botm

Iain Sinclair - UK/Wales
39.l Dining on Stones
40. London Orbital
41. Downriver

May Sinclair - UK
42. Life and Death of Harriett Frean


Upton Sinclair - US
43. The Jungle

Isaac Bashevis Singer
44. The Magician of Lublin

Indra Sinha - India
45. Animal's People, 2014 botm

Josef Škvorecký - Czech
46. The Engineer of Human Souls

J. Slauerhoff - Netherlands
47. The Forbidden Realm

Which book(s) would you like to start off the new year. Let us know what you've read, recommend, and what you'd like to read. Don't forget to vote. Voting for 2026 quarterly reads will soon start. Have you nominated your choices? See the category for Quarterly reads. Happy November!

[Jenna]

I will be on vacation early Jan and always like a mystery for beach reading - anyone else intrigued by to each his own? Street if crocodiles and Transit also strike my fancy but maybe I’m in a morbid mood.

[Pamela]

I’ve read 16 of these. I’d also like to read To Each His Own. I have The Jungle and The Magician of Lublin so would get behind either of those too.

[Rosemary]

I've read 19. I have The Emigrants so that one would be great, but I'd be fine with any of those already mentioned except The Jungle, which I've read.

[Patrick]

20 read from this lot, which is a bit below average for me. However, I have five sitting on my TBR shelves:

- The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (Saramago)
- Rob Roy (Scott)
- How the Dead Live (Self)
- Death and the Dervish (Selimovic)
- Quo Vadis (Sienkiewicz)

I would have a preference for the first one and the last two, simply because I have French editions (so, Saramago, Selimovic and Sienkiewicz).

(Note: Animal's People by Sinha is extremely funny)