Is it just me, or do the Goodreads Choice Awards always seem like the dullest collection of middling pablum? I am sure there are some good ones in there, but they sure struggle to make any of them sound interesting. I guess James sounds interesting. I will probably read that eventually. And Ministry of Time. It's always nice when one of the Enger brothers puts out a book. But as a whole? Feels like the bookshelf of someone who uses penultimate synonymously with ultimate.

Maybe this is just the nature of awards. They skew toward the mediocre because they appeal to the most people? This is how As Good as it Gets is nominated for an Oscar and Less wins a Pulitzer. This is how The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Ozzie Osbourne's son win Grammy Awards 20 years after any of them were relevant, or Mumford & Sons won a Grammy at all. This is why Foreigner is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Maybe I am the weird one, but when I see a sticker on a book that is announcing that it won a Pulitzer, Booker, or Goodreads award, I instantly get suspicious. I don't begrudge writers or publishers trying to use the sticker to sell more books, but it has the opposite effect on me. I think it probably changes who reads a book. I prefer the books that mind their own business and just sit on a shelf festering in obscurity until I stumble across them. Cheers to the unawarded, the unstickered, the obscure.