Crossword Book Awards announces its 2026 Popular Choice shortlists in five categories

The Crossword Book Awards announced its 2026 Popular Choice shortlist in five categories.

Voting will be open from October 26 to November 23. The titles have been selected based on their sales across Crossword Bookstores. The winners will be announced in December 2026.

Readers can vote for their favourite books here.

Here are the complete shortlists:

Children’s books

• A Girl, a Tiger and a Very Strange Story, Paro Anand, illustrated by Priya Kuriyan

• Lightning Kid, Viswanathan Anand

• Life’s Magic Moments, Ruskin Bond

• Sneaker Paati, Anita Nair

• The Magic of the Lost Earrings, Sudha Murty

Fiction

• 12 Years, Chetan Bhagat

• Amma’s Diary, Ravi Mantri, translated from Telugu by Sameera

• I Cannot Say Goodbye To You, Rithvik Singh

• The Ayodhya Alliance, Ashwin Sanghi

• The Chola Tigers, Amish

Nonfiction

• Mother Mary Comes To Me, Arundhati Roy

• Mrs Funnybones Returns, Twinkle Khanna, published by Juggernaut Books

• Operation Sindoor, Lt. Gen. KJS “Tiny” Dhillon

• The Outsider: A Memoir of Misfits, Vir Das

• Thinking of Winter, Shantanu Naidu, illustrated by Sumouli Dutta

Business and Management

• Doing the Right Thing: Learnings from Ratan Tata, Harish Bhat

• Human Edge in the AI Edge, Nitin Seth

• The CEO Mindset: Developing Leadership Habits and Mental Models for Success, Shiv Shivakumar

• The Money Ball: Your Guide to Crafting Business Ideas and Fundraising, Sarthak Ahuja

• Zero To Scale: A Playbook To Build Consumer Brands In India, Arindam Paul

Mind, Body and Spirit

• It’s Okay, Jaya Kishori

• Manifest Anything In 100 Days, Amiett Kumar

• Truth Without Apology, Acharya Prashant

• Winning People Without Losing Yourself, Ankur Warikoo

• You Can Have It All, Gaur Gopal Das

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