Using Awards Lists As A RA Tool: Booker Prize Edition

This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool.  

The other day, the longlist for the 2023 Booker Prize was announced. This is one of my favorite awards to use for RA purposes-- displays and suggestion especially-- because they have always embraced a wide range of books to be included in their consideration. Genre titles, books by diverse voices, and even excellent story collections are considered.

However, it is not just the books they longlist which is why I adore this award as a RA Tool, it is also how they treat their award as a resource as well.  It's like they get us.

You can click on the tab at the top of the home page for info about the current prize labelled "Booker Prize" to reveal info about the current longlist.

But, there is also this awesome page entitled, "The Booker Library." It is exactly what it says, a full library of all of the books and authors they have ever longlisted. It is RA gold. There are separate pages for the books, the authors, and the prize years. You can find everything you want to know in order to suggest titles to readers as well as titles to build displays, all with super with easy backlist access.

And if this wasn't already a great resource, there is also an entire page of reading guides speficially designed for book groups and libraries to use here.

Here is the entry for one of my favorite books of the last few years, The Trees by Percival Everett. These guides are a great way to see if a book would be a good choice for your book clubs, as well as a guide for discussions. 

Go visit the Book Prizes webpage now since it is in the news, but make sure you return regularly to use the excellent information that they have gathered for you to help readers all year long.