Award Winning Books of 2020!

Posted On January 13, 2021

 

Hi Readers! You all have already read the 75 books I read last year. I thought I will write something more about books! As you all know, I read a lot of prize-winning books. They are guaranteed to be good in most cases & that leave little scope for disappointment. So, I thought of doing a compilation of all the major Book Awards of 2020! I always find myself going online and finding this list from different websites time & time again. How amazing would it be to have them all in one place?

I have included the most prestigious & major book awards here. This includes Nobel Prize for Literature, Pulitzer Prize Award, Booker Prize Award, Women’s Prize for Fiction Award, JCB Prize for Literature Award, British Book Awards, Walter Scott Prize, Goodreads Choice Award. Now, all of these have categories & if I follow that, it will be a big list so I am going to mention the award-winning books in the categories of Fiction, Poetry, Non-Fiction, Autobiography. For others, there is a plain longlist, shortlist & the winner. For these I will only skip the longlist. There are about 20+ 2020 Book Award winners in this post & also few more books that made it to the Shortlist! I hope you find this post to be useful in finding your next book to read!

~~THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE~~

The Award that needs no introduction is of course the Nobel Prize for Literature! This year Louise Glück won The Nobel Prize in Literature for the year 2020 “for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal.” She is an American poet and essayist. After this news came up, I naturally did some research for her top poetry books. These include-

The Wild Iris

Averno

Faithful and Virtuous Night

Meadowlands

The First Four Books of Poems

Ararat

 

~~THE PULITZER PRIZE~~

I have always trusted books that are Pulitzer Prize winners. They almost never disappoint & are always gripping & leave you fascinated! Check out the 2020 Pulitzer Prize winners!

Fiction: The Nickel Boys by ColsonWhitehead

Biography: Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser

Poetry: The Tradition by Jericho Brown

Non-Fiction: The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America by Greg Grandin

The Undying: Pain, Vulnerability, Mortality, Medicine, Art, Time, Dreams, Data, Exhaustion, Cancer, and Care by Anne Boyer, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides & Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler.

 

The Pulitzer Prize winners that I have loved so far are The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri, The Color Purple by Alice Walker. I also have a few Pulitzer Prize winning books on my TBR like Less by Andrew Sean Greer, Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.

 

~~THE BOOKER PRIZE~~

Similar to The Pulitzer Prize, I have also always trusted The Booker Prize winners. In this, there aren’t genres, because mainly there are fiction novels. They share a Longlist of books followed by a Shortlist & then finally the winner! To have more recommendations for you, I have also added the books on the shortlist for The Booker Prize for 2020!

Winner: Shuggie Bain by Stuart Douglas

Shortlist:

The New Wilderness by Diane Cook

This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga

Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi

The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste

Real Life by Brandon Taylor

Though I haven’t actually read any of the Booker Prize winners, I have a lot of them on my TBR. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders, The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo, Milkman by Anna Burns are few books that I plan to read very soon.

 

~~WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION~~

Of course I am going to mention the most amazing literary award that is Women’s Prize for Fiction! This Award dates back to 1996, which I think is simply fabulous. It has a pattern similar to The Booker Prize, so check out the winner & the shortlist below!

Winner: Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

Shortlist:

Dominicana by Angie Cruz

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel

Weather by Jenny Offill

Again, the books on my TBR which are Women’s Prize for Fiction winner are The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I definitely need to add more to this list!

 

~~JCB PRIZE FOR LITERATURE AWARD~~

The JCB Prize for Literatureis a much more recent Award than the other on the list. It’s mainly an India-based Award which started their journey since 2018. Check out the 2020 JCB Prize Winner followed by the shortlist!

Winner: Moustache, S Hareesh, translated from the Malayalam by Jayasree Kalathil

Shortlist:

Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara

Chosen Spirits by Samit Basu

These, Our Bodies, Possessed by Light by Dharini Bhaskar

Prelude to a Riot by Annie Zaidi

I read the 2019 JCB Prize winner which was Madhuri Vijay’s The Far Field, which I did not like. But, here’s to reading brilliant Indian literature!

 

~~BRITISH BOOK AWARDS~~

I did a bit of research before writing this, so that I will have a compilation of all the best Book Awards in one place. I stumbled across this gem during this research. Given that I love British literature, I am going to make it a point to always check for the British Book Award winners! Check out the winners below across different categories.

Author of the Year: Bernardine Evaristo

Book of the Year: Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

Fiction Book of the Year: Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

Crime & Thriller Book of the Year: My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Non-Fiction: Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

 

~~THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE~~

While doing my research on prize winning books, I also stumbled on The Walter Scott Prize. And, the best part is this Prize is entirely dedicated to Historical Fiction! Also, a lot of the book are based in wartime. It’s what I have been looking for & I am always going to read The Walter Scott Prize winner every year. This mind-blowing British Literary Award was founded in 2010, giving me 10 amazing historical fiction book recommendations! They also have a winner & a shortlist which you can check out below.

 

Winner: The Narrow Land Christine Dwyer Hickey

Shortlist:

Isabella Hammad, The Parisian

James Meek, To Calais, In Ordinary Time

Joseph O’Connor, Shadowplay

Tim Pears, The Redeemed

Marguerite Poland, A Sin Of Omission

 

~~GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD~~

Last but never the least one is our collective favourite ‘ Goodreads Choice Awards! Let’s be honest. We are all obsessed with Goodreads, so naturally we are all also obsessed with Goodreads Choice Awards. I am sure you have already seen the winners in this category, which is why I have included only my favourite genres. You can check out the remaining genre winners here!

Fiction: The Midnight Library by MattHaig

Mystery & Thriller: The Guest List by Lucy Foley

Historical Fiction: The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Autobiography: A Promised Land by Barack Obama

Non-Fiction: Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds

Poetry: Dearly: Poems by Margaret Atwood

 

To be honest, I am super proud of myself to compile this list, because it is definitely going to make things easier for me & I hope for you too. If you love this post, I will make this an annual feature or also compile 2019 & 2018 Award winners! Let me know if you want me to add any more awards to this list. Always happy to expand my wisdom when it comes to books!

 

Until next time,