The winners of the 2016 Goodreads Choice Awards have been published on the Goodreads website. These are the only major book awards decided by the readers themselves and come through literally millions of votes; 3,562,702 to be exact. Who says people don’t read anymore?
Voting was scheduled in three rounds beginning November 1st and ending November 27th and included 20 categories from Fiction and Mystery/Thriller to Non-Fiction and YA Fantasy. Of all nominees, there were 237,844 votes total. In the Fiction category, the winner with 30,154 votes went to Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriaty. Truly Madly Guilty was also listed on Amazon in the top 20 overall customer favorites, where additional favorites listed were such authors as J. K. Rowling, Nora Roberts, John Grisham, Bill O’Reilly, and Michael Connelly. And in the best mystery and thriller category, Stephen King for End of Watch with 42,382 votes. How is that even fair?
Also found in the top 20 in both the Goodreads Fiction category as well as the same category on Amazon was The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeny with 24,848 votes on Goodreads and The Nix by Nathan Hill with 3,645 votes, also an Amazon editor best pick of the top 20. Additionally, Nathan Hill scored again for Best Debut Goodreads Author. And it doesn’t stop there.
My Goodreads official 2016 Reading Challenge was 65 books, admittedly down from previous years owing the increased time spent writing, but still showing a respectable 66 books or 17,621 pages. Further stats show the shortest book read at 124 pages for Jackass Letters (reviewed just recently) and the longest at 636 pages for Dead Lawyers Don’t Lie (also reviewed recently). The Most Popular book was read by 7,976 other Goodreads readers, The Dirty Parts of the Bible by Sam Torode–delightful book–obviously, and also recently reviewed.
In fact, I greatly stepped up my review of Goodreads authors, as well as Amazon debut authors and with over a week before the end of the year; suspect I can add maybe three more to the list. Many authors with some super books list them freely on BookBub, where I picked up The Dirty Parts of the Bible, along with some other very well known authors doing some marketing and promoting. I’ve spoken before of the wonderful selection on BookBub all across the genre board, many free for the downloading.
My top 10 favorite books for 2016 in no particular order for 2016 were:
- Down the Road to Key West (or any book by Michael Reisig
- Twisted Vine (or any book by Toby Neal)
- Just Different Devils (or any book by Jinx Schwartz
- The Sword of the Banshee (or any book by Amanda Hughes)
- The Dirty Parts of the Bible by Sam Torode
- Mornings in Two Pan by B. K. Froman
- Mortom by Erik Therme
- The Old Man and the Princess by Sean-Paul Thomas
- A Bit of Earth by Wendy Reid Crisp
- Blacktip Island by Tim W Jackson
How does this all compare to Amazon? There are some remarkable similarities as well as the differences. The run-away winner of the 2016 National Book Award, as well as the #1 New York Times Bestseller and New York Times Book Review’s Ten Best Books of 2016 is The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead and is listed in Oprah’s Book Club. This book also won the Historical Fiction category on Goodreads with 24,175 votes.
Have you checked out the Goodreads Choice Awards 2016 or the Amazon Editor’s Picks for 2016? How many did you read? There are some amazing bestsellers. I was introduced to some wonderful authors, and continue to expand my list of favorites. Which ones did you catch? Did you agree or disagree with the reviews? I’d love to hear how you voted. Leave me a comment and let me know. ©2016 Virginia Williams 
Rosepoint Publishing 