New Delhi, Oct 26 Literary heavyweights Arundhati Roy, Ruskin Bond and Chetan Bhagat, along with bestselling authors Amish, Sudha Murty and Twinkle Khanna, feature in the ‘Popular Choice Shortlist’ for the 20th edition of the “Crossword Book Awards”, with 25 titles across five categories vying for readers’ votes.
The shortlist includes Roy’s “Mother Mary Comes To Me”, Bond’s “Life’s Magic Moments”, Bhagat’s “12 Years”, Amish’s “The Chola Tigers” and Murty’s “The Magic Of The Lost Earrings”, alongside works by eminent personalities such as Viswanathan Anand, Vir Das, Ashwin Sanghi and Ankur Warikoo.
“Amma’s Diary” by Ravi Mantri, translated from Telugu by Sameera; “I Cannot Say Goodbye To You” by Rithvik Singh and “The Ayodhya Alliance” by Ashwin Sanghi are among the titles shortlisted for the fiction category.
The shortlisted titles in non-fiction includes “Mrs Funnybones Returns” by Twinkle Khanna, “Operation Sindoor” by Lt Gen K J S ‘Tiny’ Dhillon (retd), “The Outsider” by Vir Das” and “Thinking Of Winter” by Shantanu Naidu, illustrated by Sumouli Dutta.
Voting for the Popular Choice Awards opens on October 26 and will remain open until November 23, giving readers the final say in deciding the winners.
Speaking on the announcement, Nidhi Gupta, director of Crossword Bookstores, said the ‘Popular Choice Awards’ recognise the role readers play in shaping literary conversations and determining which books gain wider recognition.
“One of the strongest endorsements a book can receive is when a reader recommends it to someone else. That is what makes the Crossword Book Awards – Popular Choice so special,” Gupta said.
She added that readers’ votes reflect the stories and ideas that resonate with them, making the awards an important platform for celebrating their choices.
In the children’s books category, the shortlisted titles include “A Girl, a Tiger And a Very Strange Story” by Paro Anand, illustrated by Priya Kuriyan; “Lightning Kid” by Viswanathan Anand and “Sneaker Paati” by Anita Nair.
Similarly, in business and management, the shortlisted books are “Doing the Right Thing” by Harish Bhat; “Human Edge in the AI Edge” by Nitin Seth, “The CEO Mindset” by Shib Shivakumar, “The Money Ball” by Sarthak Ahuja, and “Zero to Scale” by Arindam Paul.
The Mind, Body and Spirit category includes “It’s Okay” by Jaya Kishori, “Manifest Anything In 100 Days” by Amiett Kumar, “Truth Without Apology” by Acharya Prashant, “Winning People Without Losing Yourself” by Ankur Warikoo, and “You Can Have It All” by Gaur Gopal Das.
The announcement follows the Jury Awards shortlist, selected by a 15-member jury. The eligible titles were published in India in English between March 2025 and February 2026 and shortlisted based on their sales across Crossword Bookstores.
The winners of both the ‘Jury Awards’ and ‘Popular Choice Awards’ will be announced at the final awards ceremony in December 2026.
(PTI News)
