150 Award Genres
Children
- Children - Action
- Children - Adventure
- Children - Animals
- Children - Audiobook
- Children - Christian
- Children - Coming of Age
- Children - Concept
- Children - Educational
- Children - Fable
- Children - Fantasy/Sci-Fi
- Children - General
- Children - Grade 4th-6th
- Children - Grade K-3rd
- Children - Mystery
- Children - Mythology/Fairy Tale
- Children - Non-Fiction
- Children - Picture Book
- Children - Preschool
- Children - Preteen
- Children - Religious Theme
- Children - Social Issues
Christian
- Christian - Amish
- Christian - Biblical Counseling
- Christian - Devotion/Study
- Christian - Fantasy/Sci-Fi
- Christian - Fiction
- Christian - General
- Christian - Historical Fiction
- Christian - Living
- Christian - Non-Fiction
- Christian - Romance - Contemporary
- Christian - Romance - General
- Christian - Romance - Historical
- Christian - Thriller
Fiction
- Fiction - Action
- Fiction - Adventure
- Fiction - Animals
- Fiction - Anthology
- Fiction - Audiobook
- Fiction - Chick Lit
- Fiction - Crime
- Fiction - Cultural
- Fiction - Drama
- Fiction - Dystopia
- Fiction - Fantasy - Epic
- Fiction - Fantasy - General
- Fiction - Fantasy - Urban
- Fiction - General
- Fiction - Graphic Novel/Comic
- Fiction - Historical - Event/Era
- Fiction - Historical - Personage
- Fiction - Holiday
- Fiction - Horror
- Fiction - Humor/Comedy
- Fiction - Inspirational
- Fiction - Intrigue
- Fiction - LGBTQ
- Fiction - Literary
- Fiction - Magic/Wizardry
- Fiction - Military
- Fiction - Mystery - General
- Fiction - Mystery - Historical
- Fiction - Mystery - Legal
- Fiction - Mystery - Murder
- Fiction - Mystery - Sleuth
- Fiction - Mythology
- Fiction - New Adult
- Fiction - Paranormal
- Fiction - Realistic
- Fiction - Religious Theme
- Fiction - Science Fiction
- Fiction - Short Story/Novela
- Fiction - Social Issues
- Fiction - Southern
- Fiction - Sports
- Fiction - Supernatural
- Fiction - Suspense
- Fiction - Tall Tale
- Fiction - Thriller - Conspiracy
- Fiction - Thriller - Environmental
- Fiction - Thriller - Espionage
- Fiction - Thriller - General
- Fiction - Thriller - Legal
- Fiction - Thriller - Medical
- Fiction - Thriller - Political
- Fiction - Thriller - Psychological
- Fiction - Thriller - Terrorist
- Fiction - Time Travel
- Fiction - Urban
- Fiction - Visionary
- Fiction - Western
- Fiction - Womens
Non-Fiction
- Non-Fiction - Adventure
- Non-Fiction - Animals
- Non-Fiction - Anthology
- Non-Fiction - Art/Photography
- Non-Fiction - Audiobook
- Non-Fiction - Autobiography
- Non-Fiction - Biography
- Non-Fiction - Business/Finance
- Non-Fiction - Cooking/Food
- Non-Fiction - Cultural
- Non-Fiction - Drama
- Non-Fiction - Education
- Non-Fiction - Environment
- Non-Fiction - Genealogy
- Non-Fiction - General
- Non-Fiction - Gov/Politics
- Non-Fiction - Grief/Hardship
- Non-Fiction - Health - Fitness
- Non-Fiction - Health - Medical
- Non-Fiction - Historical
- Non-Fiction - Hobby
- Non-Fiction - Home/Crafts
- Non-Fiction - Humor/Comedy
- Non-Fiction - Inspirational
- Non-Fiction - LGBTQ
- Non-Fiction - Marketing
- Non-Fiction - Memoir
- Non-Fiction - Military
- Non-Fiction - Motivational
- Non-Fiction - Music/Entertainment
- Non-Fiction - New Age
- Non-Fiction - Occupational
- Non-Fiction - Parenting
- Non-Fiction - Relationships
- Non-Fiction - Religion/Philosophy
- Non-Fiction - Retirement
- Non-Fiction - Self Help
- Non-Fiction - Short Story/Novela
- Non-Fiction - Social Issues
- Non-Fiction - Spiritual/Supernatural
- Non-Fiction - Sports
- Non-Fiction - Travel
- Non-Fiction - True Crime
- Non-Fiction - Womens
- Non-Fiction - Writing/Publishing
Poetry
Romance
Young Adult
- Young Adult - Action
- Young Adult - Adventure
- Young Adult - Coming of Age
- Young Adult - Fantasy - Epic
- Young Adult - Fantasy - General
- Young Adult - Fantasy - Urban
- Young Adult - General
- Young Adult - Horror
- Young Adult - Mystery
- Young Adult - Mythology/Fairy Tale
- Young Adult - Non-Fiction
- Young Adult - Paranormal
- Young Adult - Religious Theme
- Young Adult - Romance
- Young Adult - Sci-Fi
- Young Adult - Social Issues
- Young Adult - Thriller
Illustration Award
Recommend this book:
Good Awkward
How to Embrace the Embarrassing and Celebrate the Cringe to Become The Bravest You
Henna Pryor
2024 Finalist
200 Pages
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Non-Fiction - Self Help
Good Awkward by Henna Pryor is a deep exploration of the various ways awkwardness can hold one back and how best to handle feeling awkward on the path to success. Henna shares her SUCK Framework and how she uses humor, levity, and improvisational skills in awkward situations. The lessons in Good Awkward are a result of research, personal practice, and learning from others. The book exposes the irony of trying to escape awkward situations and how this leads to more awkwardness. It offers exercises to help readers focus on building the mental muscle of awkward tolerance. Additionally, Good Awkward sheds light on the origin of awkwardness and its link to empathy, how to tap into the benefit of awareness, using an improv mentality to infuse "good awkward" into teams, and more.
Henna Pryor's writing style proves she practices what she preaches. She's a master at using humor and awkward situations to get her message across to the reader. Apart from sharing her own awkward stories, Henna writes about various celebrities and successful individuals and how they dealt with awkward moments, revealing that they are not exempt from embarrassing situations. These stories are quite engaging, funny, and educational. The book is rich in information that is useful for growing at work and other areas. I hope to always see my discomfort as "a sign I’m playing at my growth edge." After reading Good Awkward, your attitude toward awkwardness will never be the same. The book is a paradigm shifter and a rich resource that will benefit readers who wish to make moves despite fear of failure and take more risks to achieve more goals in life.
Recommend this book:
Build Resilience
Live, Learn, and Lead
Lucy Chen
2024 Honorable Mention
302 Pages
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Non-Fiction - Self Help
In Build Resilience, Lucy Chen explores resilience through personal and historical lenses. At her daughter’s graduation, she feels her late father's absence and reflects on his WWII hardships and her mother Xiaoqin’s perseverance during the Cultural Revolution. Chen's own difficulties, including adapting to the US, caregiving for her mother with dementia, and the COVID-19 pandemic, highlight her resilience. She speaks on self-care, mindfulness, and hope in stress management. Chen’s career shift from environmental engineering to quantitative analysis, discussions with friends, and conversion to Christianity are put forward as proof of her evolving pliancy and faith. Her involvement in Toastmasters and community support, along with advocating simple living through Grace, Yasmin, and Master Min, marks the benefits of continuous learning and connections.
“God answered my heartfelt prayers, and for that, I hold a profound sense of gratitude.” Lucy Chen does an excellent job of providing a comprehensive view of three generations in Build Resilience, providing a strong intergenerational perspective that allows us to genuinely appreciate the progress made over time and understand the continuity of her values and resilience. Chen's inspiring memoir is embedded in a foundation of Christianity, and she employs scripture and moments of prayer and thanks throughout. Her work feels like a heartfelt testimony and there is a clear sense that she knows her journey and that of her parents were part of a divine path through frequent reflections on God’s providence and by expressing gratitude for the blessings received. This continues even in dark moments and is what makes her memoir a beacon of hope. The writing is intelligent, accessible, and engrossing, and will undoubtedly be embraced by readers who are looking to be inspired. Very highly recommended.
Recommend this book:
Take Back Your Brain
How a Sexist Society Gets in Your Head--and How to Get It Out
Kara Loewentheil
2024 Bronze Medal
320 Pages
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Non-Fiction - Self Help
Take Back Your Brain by Kara Loewentheil is a self-help book empowering women to take back their brains, choose their emotions, and become the unique force they need to be for themselves and the world. Loewentheil, a life coach, takes you on her journey of a flawed body image and how she reclaimed her identity amidst the societal noise imposed upon women for generations. The author covers the major insecurities that ravage women’s minds and lives, including relationships and sex, financial and time management, and self-image and self-love. Though women have been freed legally in terms of laws allowing them financial agency, centuries of indoctrination have kept women imprisoned in a loop of dependence on the approval of others, including close relations and even people they couldn’t care less about. Take Back Your Brain will empower you with step-by-step processes to tackle the rhetoric that is keeping you trapped and limited.
Take Back Your Brain by Kara Loewentheil is an absorbing, bold, candid, charismatic, fascinating, memorable, and powerful resource that will resonate with women seeking to reclaim control of their lives. The sections I particularly enjoyed were Take Back Your Money Mindset and Take Back Your Time. After reading this book, I felt empowered and reassured by Loewentheil’s strategies. The book is well-written, and I particularly enjoyed the conversational and empowering tone of her writing. Her analytical approach to explaining the relationship between our thoughts, emotions, and actions made me feel that the transformation she and her clients experienced is possible for me and all women with the persistent application of these strategies. One of her exercises that stood out was saying, “How human of me,” whenever you overthink and overanalyze a mistake. Take Back Your Brain is undoubtedly one of the best self-help books I’ve read.
Recommend this book:
Stop, Drop, Grow, and Glow
Forming Deeper and More Joyful Connections with Yourself and Your Children
Holly Swenson
2024 Silver Medal
248 Pages
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Non-Fiction - Self Help
Stop, Drop, Grow, and Glow: Forming Deeper And More Joyful Connections With Yourself And Your Children is a parenting and self-help book by Holly Swenson. Holly and her husband welcomed a total of four baby boys into the world. Holly discovered that parenthood is not only about raising happy, healthy, well-adjusted children, but is also about raising yourself. She understands that her own childhood helped to shape her into the person she is now. This included being sent to live with her father, who lived with addictions to smoking and drinking. She later discovered that she learned just as much from her children as they learned from her.
Stop, Drop, Grow, and Glow is an inspiring book that will help parents learn to cherish every moment with their children, even through difficult times. I enjoyed the way the author used personal experiences to back up her points about parenting. I loved how this book shows that there are many things that we can only learn from experience. As much as I enjoyed the whole book, The Parenting 12 is one of the best sections because Swenson shares the questions and answers from other parents who have learned so much from raising their kids, just as she has. I recommend Stop, Drop, Grow, and Glow by Holly Swenson to anyone who has children or is considering starting a family. This book will inspire others to take care of their children and the life they’ve built, as well as take care of themselves while raising a family.
Recommend this book:
The Half-Known Life
What Matters Most When You're Running Out of Time
Ryan Lindner
2024 Gold Medal
195 Pages
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Non-Fiction - Self Help
We often feel our lives get stuck in a routine that never changes. Sometimes, only a disastrous, shocking, or life-threatening event urges us to change our way of life. We hold on to the labels that define us, like the title "Doctor" before our names. We prefer to live in a sphere of comfortable and familiar habits that include the sources of information we receive and we reject any different opinion so as to keep our comfort zone intact. So, what should we do to break the vicious circle we have built around our egos and change our lives for the better? How can we obtain the needed confidence without losing our true identity? The Half-Known Life by Ryan Lindner is a thought-provoking read for fans of the self-help genre and motivational books.
The Half-Known Life is an eye-opening book. Ryan Lindner is almost painfully honest and very open with his readers. Ryan tells about the challenges he faces every day after two cardiac arrests he experienced at a young age. I appreciated Ryan's thoughtful observations regarding our dependence on what others think about us and the roles we play for them at work and home. It is essential to leave our "bubble" or comfort zone and open up to other opinions, even if they seem alien or unacceptable. Otherwise, our perception of the world will be distorted. Thus, The Half-Known Life helps attentive and brave readers become more tolerant and confident. Ryan shares unorthodox views on time, happiness, life goals, and what it means to truly forgive those who wronged us, which deserve to be explored. The Half-Known Life offers simple solutions to break bad habits, make the right choices, and finally start living our lives to the fullest, realizing that our time on this earth is limited.
Recommend this book:
Positive Changes
A Self-Kick Book
Shelley F. Knight
2023 Finalist
395 Pages
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Non-Fiction - Self Help
Shelley F. Knight's Positive Changes is a compilation of thoughts and anecdotes designed to help readers see things more positively, despite the negative circumstances in their lives. The book contains exceptional real-life tales, thought-provoking quotations, insightful study findings, encouraging phrases, and direct counsel. Readers are recommended to choose what resonates with them from the book since it provides alternate concepts that might benefit individuals with different mindsets at different phases. Procrastination is addressed in the section Countdown Clock, which also reminds us that life is too short to spend it continuously putting things off. Shelley challenges the reader to begin making their impact on the world, even if it is just at a snail's speed, in Calling All Snails. Expect to find several more profound ideas throughout the book.
You can't help but be impressed by the perceptive book that author Shelley F. Knight has written since it has extremely practical and thought-provoking language that gives excellent suggestions for molding one's mind in many real-life scenarios. Because everyone's narrative is distinct and no single answer is likely to fix everyone's problem, the book, with its assortment of conflicting yet thoroughly logical concepts, is far more practical and realistic than most other self-help books I've come across. Positive Changes is never dull since it provides a well-balanced combination of unabashedly candid counsel, well-chosen quotes and facts, and personal tales that portray the author as a relatable mother, wife, and more. If you find yourself feeling unhappy while having a lot going for you, or if you just want to get rid of negative thinking, I highly recommend Positive Changes!
Recommend this book:
Your Best Life
Tactics, Tools and Insights to Create a Life of Fulfillment, Joy and Abundance
Mike X
2023 Honorable Mention
400 Pages
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Non-Fiction - Self Help
Your Best Life: Tactics, Tools and Insights to Create a Life of Fulfillment, Joy and Abundance by Mike X is a different kind of self-help book. Chapter titles include You Are the Master of Your Mind, Ten Magic Words to Heal Any Relationship, How to Make Every Day a Great Day, and 27 more. The author goes for what he describes as “breadth instead of depth.” That means that he doesn’t delve too deeply into any one idea but writes about many different concepts. The book is written in a light, breezy style and contains much white space. It also addresses readers directly, using the words “you” or “your” more than 2,500 times. The author has worked in many different fields during his life, including as a TV director, a marketing consultant, a research scientist, and more. This variety of careers gives him good insight into the human condition. However, readers need to be aware that there is considerable profanity in the book.
Everyone needs to read this book. Your Best Life is full of superb advice. Its information is powerful and has the potential to change lives. Some of the recommendations are clichés, but that’s fine. There’s a reason that certain advice gets repeated so often - it works. The author, who goes by the pen name Mike X, asks a lot of wise questions, encouraging readers to look at their own lives and attitudes. For example, after giving his definition of success he asks readers what their definition is. Unlike some self-help books, which can be difficult to slog through, this book is fun to read. That’s because of a combination of its excellent suggestions, the writing style, and the numerous photos, drawings, and other graphics. I recommend this book to anyone and everyone.
Recommend this book:
Artist
Awakening the Spirit Within
Jocelyn Jones
2023 Bronze Medal
286 Pages
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Non-Fiction - Self Help
Artist: Awakening the Spirit Within by Jocelyn Jones takes the reader through steps that are designed to reach the artist in each of us. Using stories from her own life and guiding the reader through meditations, Jones trains actors, and those wishing to be artists alike. She demonstrates how focusing on details helps us ignore preconceptions and assumptions and focus on what is truly there. The meditations she describes are as simple as watching your breath. Yes, Jones believes in the Law of Attraction, but you can ignore that and still get plenty of value from this book.
While reading Artist by Jocelyn Jones, I felt I was being let into the world of an actor. Her story of how Marlon Brando created the character of Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire is so compelling that even the author, Tennessee Williams, was amazed at the actor’s ability to show how a woman could love a man who abuses her. The most valuable thing about this book is Jones' encouragement. She believes all her readers can be artists and produce something that will enrich life on this planet. Jones shows how the act of creating art can be a path to awakening a sense of purpose and aliveness. The clear instructions and well-chosen examples will help readers along their own path to creativity. I recommend this book to anyone who has thought about creating art in any form – acting, drawing, writing, or dance. The stories and encouragement here may be the very thing a budding artist needs to get started.
Recommend this book:
Gaslighting
A Step-by-Step Recovery Guide to Heal from Emotional Abuse and Build Healthy Relationships
Deborah Vinall, PsyD, LMFT
2023 Silver Medal
168 Pages
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Non-Fiction - Self Help
Gaslighting by Deborah Vinall is a self-help book providing a step-by-step guide to identifying and dealing with being gaslit in relationships and, ultimately, how to recover from emotional abuse. She starts by helping the reader determine whether they are experiencing gaslighting by asking specific questions to guide them to a conclusion. Vinall lists the different types of gaslighters, their unique tactics to control and abuse their targets, and the process that victims must follow to accept what is happening, how to grieve the experience/loss, and how to exit if they wish to and work toward a new life in a healthier relationship. Setting boundaries, self-care, and rebuilding healthy self-esteem features strongly. Vinall provides exercises after each chapter so the reader can assess the situation and recover and mend.
Gaslighting by Deborah Vinall is an absorbing, powerful, and resourceful guide to recovering from emotional abuse and relationships where you were gaslit. Vinall takes a deep and complex topic and breaks it into easily digestible steps, with each chapter focusing on a single area to help the reader understand the information on this subject. The chapters follow a coherent progression that makes it easy for readers to follow and want to read the next chapter as it builds on the previous one and is the next step in the healing journey. Abuse is a daunting topic in general, but even more so for the target of abuse. Yet, Vinall’s supportive tone throughout makes reading this book a feel-good and refreshing experience that leaves the reader with a feeling of empowerment. I truly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone experiencing abuse as a first step to recovery, especially if they intend to practice all the exercises after each chapter.
Recommend this book:
The Financial Mindset Fix
A Mental Fitness Program for an Abundant Life
Joyce Marter
2023 Gold Medal
328 Pages
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Non-Fiction - Self Help
The Financial Mindset Fix: A Mental Fitness Program for an Abundant Life by Joyce Marter is an important lesson that teaches you about the intrinsic relationship between mental health and financial health. It is a holistic program that aims to enhance your mindset around finances and transform the way you think, feel, and act, which greatly impacts the way you achieve your goals that ultimately lead to your success. Each chapter focuses on a particular mindset that you can study, analyze, and then adopt for yourself. As everyone’s financial situation and life conditions are different, empirical support is provided for you to analyze as well as exercises and tools to assist you in your mindset development journey.
Does the world need another book on mindset? If you ever wondered how financial success and mental well-being are correlated, then yes, because not all books on mindsets are created equal, and rarely do you find a book that addresses the connection between these two things. Joyce Marter sets the bar when it comes to addressing traits and ways of thinking that are relevant to how much financial success you can achieve. She writes in a manner that invites you to the idea of openness, of being welcoming to new experiences.
As The Financial Mindset Fix challenges you to analyze the possibility that what you have long believed to be true is detrimental to your success, it similarly guides you to re-align your internal control to steer you back on track. If your intellectual curiosity is pushing you to openness and embracing the idea that you can learn new things and abandon beliefs that don’t work, then this is the right mindset book for you.