Goodreads Makes Major 2026 Awards Announcement

Published Nov 9, 2026, 12:42 PM EST Amanda Kay Oaks is a writer and lifelong book nerd. She has been writing about books on the internet for over 10 years, with prior bylines at Book Riot and ComicBook.com. Though she reads across most genres, Amanda Kay is particularly fond of romance, cozy fantasy, and books with strong female characters. Sign in to your ScreenRant account As we enter the last two months of 2026, many publications are putting out their annual "best of" lists for books, movies, games, and more. Even if new releases don't fully stop in December, the book world definitely slows down as winter hits. So, it's no surprise that even reader-facing platforms like Goodreads are prepping for the "best books" season. Goodreads recently announced the dates for both initial voting and finalist announcements for its 2026 Choice Awards. While most lists of the best books are compiled on the editorial side, the Goodreads Choice Awards offer a unique setup. Across two rounds of voting, Goodreads users pick the best books of the year. And it's almost time for this year's selections to begin. Voting for this year's Goodreads Choice Awards begins on November 10, with the first round running until November 22. During that time, Goodreads users can vote on their picks from each included category. The initial 20 nominees are selected by Goodreads based on site statistics like how often a book was shelved and average ratings. From there, users will directly vote to narrow it down for subsequent rounds and select the final winners. On November 24th, Goodreads will announce the 10 finalists from the initial round of user votes. Then, readers will again be able to vote from November 24 to November 29 to select their favorites from the finalists in each category. Finally, the big event: the winners of the 2026 Goodreads Choice Awards will be revealed on December 3. If 2026 is anything like years past, readers will have some big feelings about the results, and that's part of the fun. Because votes come directly from readers, the Goodreads Choice Awards are more of a popularity contest than basically any other best books list on the internet. That makes them fascinating to watch, as the results highlight which books generated the biggest buzz in any given year. For many readers, the Goodreads Choice Awards are a fun way to cap off the year by voting for their favorite reads and reflecting on the year before we turn our attention to those new year goals. While Goodreads has confirmed the dates for voting, it hasn't yet revealed which categories will be included in this year's selection. Last year's Goodreads Choice Awards featured a total of 15 options, including general fiction, romantasy, historical fiction, romance, fantasy, sci-fi, and horror. Along with genre categories, other awards like best debut novel have historically been included in the mix. It's likely that mainstay genre categories will return this year, but we could see some changes to the roster. After all, past options like Middle Grade and Children's Fiction have been removed in recent years, and romantasy was a new addition in 2023. It's likely we won't know the full list of categories for the 2026 Goodreads Choice Awards until voting begins on November 10. Once the initial selections are live, we'll have a better idea of any shake-ups in the typical slate of categories. And of course, readers will be able to pick their favorites for what's arguably the biggest bookish popularity contest of the year.