Using Awards Lists As A RA Tool: Kirkus 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.  

What is the Kirkus Prize. From their website FAQ:

The Kirkus Prize is one of the richest literary awards in the world, with a prize of $50,000 bestowed annually to authors of fiction, nonfiction, and young readers’ literature. It was created to celebrate the decades of discerning, thoughtful criticism Kirkus Reviews has contributed to both the publishing industry and readers at large. Books that earn the Kirkus star with publication dates between Nov. 1, 2022 to Oct. 31, 2023 (see FAQ for exceptions), are automatically nominated for the 2023 Kirkus Prize. Six finalists in each of three categories will be announced in August. Three winners will be announced at the Kirkus Prize ceremony on Oct. 11, 2023.

Click here to see this year's finalists as reported via LitHub. 

Click here for the Kirkus Prize homepage.

This award pulls double duty as a resource both as an award list AND a year end best list. And it is one the the earliest best lists as well.

Also, like the best of both of these categories of resources, the Kirkus Prize is best used as a resource when you consider the longlist AND the last 9 years of nominees and winners in your suggestions and displays. 

On the main page for all of Kirkus you have super easy access to every nominee and winner going back to 2014. On the banner across the top of every page, there is a tab for "Kirkus Prize" which opens a drop down menu to give you those choices by year. All with little effort. That is extremely helpful for us.

You can easily pick 2 years ago's nominees and use them today as a proven, winning suggestion.

Finally, as it says above, any book that Kirkus gave a star is considered. [You can go to their FAQ page for more detail into the considerations for this prize.] That being stated, how useful this award is to you and your patrons only goes so far as you find Kirkus useful. 

But each year I have found it to be a reliable resource to help readers who are looking for a very general list of  "the best" of the year.