The display of all the past winners of Goodreads Choice Awards. Can you find Jim Henson? (Don’t worry, I’ll show you where it is in a bit…)
Last night, I had the great pleasure of attending the Goodreads Choice Awards Tenth Anniversary Celebration in New York, where I was one of about fifteen previous award winners in attendance — and that’s because you were all lovely enough to vote for Jim Henson as the Best Biography of 2013. You can see Jim stacked there with a few of the other winners from 2013, including Stephen King, Dan Brown, and Dean Koontz. 2013 was a pretty cool year.
It was great to be among so many passionate readers, writers, and publishers–and I tried not to fanboy too much when I met Dave Cullen, who’s heartbreaking Columbine is one of my all-time favorites, and with Alexandra Robbins, who’s got a new book, Fraternity, coming your way in January. We also got to hear from Neil Gaiman, who picked up an award for being one of Goodreads’s most-nominated authors. It was a pre-recorded (Whattayawant? The man is off working to bring us the miniseries Good Omens!), but it was still super cool.
It was also a lot of fun to watch the folks at Goodreads (and Audible, another of our hosts for the evening) unveil the nominees for this year’s awards. Lots of great nominees across lots of categories–in fact, you can start casting your votes for the books of 2018 as of 11 p.m. last night. Go for it. You’ll find the link below.
Oh, and one more thing . . .
As a prior winner, that also makes Jim Henson one of the nominees in this year’s new category, “Best of the Best,” in which readers can vote for their favorite book from among a gigantic list of previous winners. I’d love it if you’d vote for Jim Henson as your all-time favorite–but it’s a huge list with EVERY genre represented, so even if you’re not a biography reader, there’s bound to be something on the list that you loved.
There he is! Stacked between two other award winners from 2013, Dan Brown’s Inferno, and Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half.
Brian Jay Jones 