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Books You Can Love and How to Find Them: Awards and Bestsellers

An overview of the readers' advisory resources available to help you find the next thing you want to read. Think block breaks, summer reading, or even something to take your mind off that looming deadline.

Find Award Winners in the Tutt Stacks

In many cases, doing a  subject search using the name of an award will give you a list of Tutt-owned books that have won it.  Try searching "Pulitzer Prizes" or "Colorado Book Award" to see how this works! 

Keyword searches also work well for finding award-winners.  Interested in short stories, poems, or essays?  Try keyword searching for "Pushcart Prize," "Best American", or "Year's Best".

Critics' Darlings and the Top of the Pops

Academy of American Poets Prizes and Book Awards

Agatha Awards - for traditional mysteries of the "cozy" variety.

Anisfield-Wolf Awards - more than 80 years of honoring books that confront racism and widen our understanding of diversity

APALA Literature Awards - annual awards from the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association in a variety of categories

Best Books for Young Adults - according to the American Library AssociationALA also awards the Michael L Printz Award to a single young adult title each year.

Booker Prize -awarded to each year's best novel published in the Commonwealth or Ireland (Booker Prize) or globally (International Booker).

Bram Stoker Awards - chosen by the membership of the Horror Writers of America.

Caldecott Medal - awarded annually to the best-illustrated American children's picture book

Colorado Book Awards - these awards celebrate distinguished works by Colorado writers and illustrators in ten different categories.

Costa Awards - awards in a broad range of genres, awarded annually to writers from the UK and Ireland.

Edgar Awards - given to the best works of "mystery, crime, suspense, and intrigue"

Emma Awards - for the best "published romance novels, novellas, and women’s fiction featuring diverse and multicultural protagonists"

The Giller Prize - for the best Canadian novel or collection of short stories by a single author

The Governor General's Literary Awards - awards for poetry, fiction, nonfiction, drama, and more, awarded annually to Canadian writers

Hugo Awards - for works in the genres of science fiction and fantasy.  Chosen by a large and avid group of fans, the members of each year's Worldcon.

The Kitschies - British awards for "the year’s most progressive, intelligent and entertaining works that contain elements of the speculative or fantastic."  Excellent and eclectic choices.

Lambda Literary Awards - a slate of awards for 24 different fiction and non-fiction categories, honoring books of literary merit which participate in LBGTQ (lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender, and queer) culture.

Mythopoeic Award - given each year to a work of fantasy in "the spirit of the Inklings" (CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, and Charles Williams)

National Book Awards 

National Book Critics Circle Awards

Nebula Awards - chosen by members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America

Newbery Medal - awarded annually to the best American work of children's literature

The New York Times -  bestsellers in many different categories

Notable Books - RUSA is the Reference and User Services division of the American Library AssociationSplit into fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, these are short annotated lists of the some of the best books published in the US each year.

Otherwise (formerly Tiptree) Award - given annually to a work of "science fiction or fantasy that expands or explores our understanding of gender." 

Publishers Weekly - Bestseller lists from the industry trade journal, data gathered by Nielsen's (the same company that does TV ratings).

Pulitzer Prize - the most famous Pulitzer Prize is awarded for investigative reporting, but there are a whole slew of others, including 6 literary awards.

Pushcart Prize - honoring the best small press works each year; the annual anthology contains mostly short stories, with some poetry, essays, and excerpts from longer works.

RITA Awards - chosen by the Romance Writers of America

Sidewise Awards - given to the best works of alternate history each year

Spur Awards - chosen by the Western Writers of America

USA Today - current bestseller list, with archives going back to 1993.

Wikipedia's list of best-selling books of all time - crowd-edited megalist of international bestsellers.

Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize) - honoring "excellence, originality and accessibility in women's writing from throughout the world."

World Fantasy Awards

Circulation Team Coordinator

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Steve Lawson
Contact:
Tutt Library Room 311
1021 N. Cascade Ave.
Colorado Springs CO 80903
719-389-6857