Indies Choice Book Award – Adult Fiction · 2019 · Winner
Circe
Madeline MillerCirce by Madeline Miller won the Indies Choice Book Award for Adult Fiction in 2019. The award was then placed on hiatus until 2026.
Indies Choice Book Award – Adult Fiction
2019 Winner
Complete History
About the Indies Choice Book Award – Adult Fiction
The Indies Choice Book Award for Adult Fiction is the premier recognition given by independent booksellers across the United States, voted on by the members of the American Booksellers Association (ABA). Originally growing out of the Book Sense program—the ABA's initiative to amplify independent bookstore recommendations—the award represents the collective judgement of the bookseller community, the people who hand-sell books daily to their customers and who possess perhaps the deepest professional knowledge of what readers respond to and what books will endure. The Adult Fiction award honours the novel that independent booksellers most enthusiastically champion in a given year. Past winners are a remarkable testament to the taste of America's independent bookselling community, including Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See (2015), Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad (2017), Jesmyn Ward's Sing, Unburied, Sing (2018), and Madeline Miller's Circe (2019). The award ran continuously from its inception until 2019, when it was placed on hiatus; the ABA relaunched the prize in 2026 for books published in 2025. The revival of the award signals renewed commitment by independent booksellers to recognise and champion the fiction they believe in most deeply. The award carries no large monetary prize but is among the most commercially meaningful endorsements a novel can receive, given that it reflects the enthusiastic support of thousands of independent booksellers across the country.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Members of the American Booksellers Association—the independent bookstore owners and staff across the United States—cast votes to determine the winner.
- The award was placed on hiatus after the 2019 prize cycle. The ABA relaunched the award in January 2026 for books published in 2025.
- There is no significant monetary prize. The award's value lies in the commercial and reputational boost it provides, representing the enthusiastic endorsement of the independent bookselling community.
- The Book Sense Book of the Year Award was the predecessor, established when the ABA launched its Book Sense marketing program for independent bookstores. The award was renamed Indies Choice Book Award when the program was rebranded.
- The program includes multiple categories, among them Adult Fiction, Adult Nonfiction, Debut Fiction, Children's, and Young Adult. Each category is voted on separately by ABA member booksellers.
- The Adult Fiction category is open to any novel or story collection marketed to adult readers by an independent press or major publisher. In practice, winners tend to be literary fiction with strong bookseller enthusiasm.
- Winning signals that independent booksellers—the most influential hand-sellers in publishing—have chosen to champion the book above all others. This typically translates into prominent shelf placement, staff recommendation displays, and enthusiastic personal recommendations to customers nationwide.