F

Flavorwire

Books

The Best Books of 2012 According to Goodreads

By Emily Temple on

The winners of the Goodreads Choice Awards have just been announced, and the results are a little surprising. As Shelf Life points out, the Goodreads Choice Awards are the closest thing the literary world has to the People’s Choice Awards, with 1,156,852 votes cast by readers for their favorite books in 20 categories, including Fiction, Memoir, Poetry and YA. So we could expect that the winners would skew commercial — no snooty critic here to put in her two cents. That said, we were still rather amazed that J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy was voted as the best work of fiction of the year. Surely, the name recognition isn’t enough — nothing against Rowling, but there were so many better books in 2012. That said, other picks — like Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl for Best Mystery, John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars for Best Young Adult, and Cheryl Strayed’s Wild for Best Memoir — we’re totally on board with. See the complete list of winners after the jump, and let us know what you think in the comments.

Fiction
The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

Nonfiction
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain

Mystery & Thriller
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Historical Fiction
The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

Memoir & Autobiography
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed

History & Biography
Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch by Sally Bedell Smith

Poetry
A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver

Science Fiction
The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett

Horror
The Twelve by Justin Cronin

Young Adult Fiction
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Fantasy
The Wind Through the Keyhole by Stephen King

Paranormal Fantasy
Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness

Romance
Fifty Shades Freed by E.L. James

Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction
Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Humor
Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson

Goodreads Author
Veronica Roth

Food & Cookbook
The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl by Ree Drummond

Graphic Novel & Comic
The Walking Dead, Vol 16: A Larger World by Robert Kirkman, Illustrated by Charlie Adlard

Children’s Book
The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan

Picture Book
Olivia and the Fairy Princesses by Ian Falconer

Filed Under:

Best of 2012GoodreadsJ. K. Rowling
Post comment as
twitter logo facebook logo
Sort: Newest | Oldest

Goodreads need to start incorporating their ratings system into the award process. I think the winner should be the 2012 book with the highest average rating. If goodreads wants to be a people's choice thing then all they need to is make that a category. If the 20 or so books listed as runner up, The Casual Vacancy has the LOWEST average rating. Pay attention to your own members goodreads. Sure 11,000 people voted for it (not that they had to have read the book or anything, it's impossible to know) but 22,000 have rated the book on the website, so what about the 11,000 people who didn't vote for it? Using the ratings system would lend both it and the website a legitimacy that the current system is lacking, as shown by winners such as this.

share
  • spam
  • offensive
  • disagree
  • off topic
 Like

it say "readers could skew commercial", so that explains the rankings

share
  • spam
  • offensive
  • disagree
  • off topic
 Like

Wow. Just...wow. The Casual Vacancy. That's embarrassing.

share
  • spam
  • offensive
  • disagree
  • off topic
 Like

It was interesting to see the vote count too. Even if I didn't agree on the winner, it was nice to see a lot of quality stuff in the top 10. @ J.S. Peyton: I also enjoyed Quiet. I had my quibbles with it but it was a really fascinating and solid book.

share
  • spam
  • offensive
  • disagree
  • off topic
 Like

I use Goodreads, but only occasionally for recommendations and usually just to see what my friends are reading. I hardly ever pay attention to the book reviews however. Amazon has better book reviews (and that's saying something). "Casual Vacancy" has 3 stars there. Though I haven't read the book, from what I've heard 3 stars is probably a much more accurate assessment than naming it the BEST NOVEL OF THE YEAR. Sheez. I do applaud them for selecting "Quiet" as the best nonfiction book of the year. It may or may not have been the best nonfiction book of the year, but it was darn good and should've made the New York Times Notable Books list.

share
  • spam
  • offensive
  • disagree
  • off topic
 Like

but your friends on Goodreads have better taste, right? I mean, that's all I use the site for. Grabbing recs from the odd (some of them seriously odd) things my friends have picked up. Any time you have some massive popular vote the mediocre will rise to the top. Its the books that manage to tickle the most while simultaneously offending the least that win.

share
  • spam
  • offensive
  • disagree
  • off topic
 Like

And this is why I stopped using Goodreads as a site. Collectively, the users' tastes are terrible. People were giving five star reviews (filled with animated gifs to express their excitement) to Casual Vacancy LONG before the novel was published.

share
  • spam
  • offensive
  • disagree
  • off topic
 Like pennyfarthing12