The Break by Marian Keyes has been shortlisted for fiction book of the year at the British Book Awards, alongside Ali Smith’s Winter, Matt Haig’s How To Stop Time, Joanna Trollope’s City Of Friends, Helen Dunmore’s Birdcage Walk and Jon McGregor’s Reservoir 13.
Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Sally Rooney is nominated for her hit Conversations with Friends (Faber). She goes head to head with Honeyman, whose first novel was acquired by HarperCollins after an eight-way auction and has spent three weeks at the top of the charts in 2018. Waterstones’ crime fiction buyer Joseph Knox’s British noir novel Sirens (Doubleday) is also nominated, as is US author Gabriel Tallent’s dark thriller My Absolute Darling (Fourth Estate). Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing (Viking), on the subject of slavery, and Gill Sims’ tongue-in-cheek account of family life, Why Mummy Drinks (Harper Non- Fiction), are also in contention.
Maggie O’Farrell has been shortlisted for Non-fiction: Narrative Book of the Year for I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death. Also shortlisted are Ask an Astronaut: My Guide to Life in Space by Tim Peake; Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge; The Secret Life of Cows by Rosamund Young; What Does This Button Do? by Bruce Dickinson; and This is Going To Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor by Adam Kay.
In the Crime & Thriller category, JP Delaney’s The Girl Before and Lee Child’s The Midnight Line will battle it out with Jane Harper’s The Dry, Sarah Pinborough’s Behind Her Eyes , Mick Herron’s Spook Street and Erin Kelly’s He Said/She Said.
Woodbine Books in Kilcullen, Co Kildare, has been shortlisted in the category Independent Bookshop of the Year, won last year by Dublin’s Gutter Bookshop. Sheila Crowley of Curtis Brown is in the running for Literary Agent of the Year.
David Walliams and Philip Pullman will face off for children’s book of the year. Walliams is nominated for Bad Dad while Pullman is shortlisted for La Belle Sauvage: The Book of Dust Volume One which marked a return to the world of His Dark Materials. The pair will compete for the title alongside Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo’s Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, Kes Gray’s Oi Cat!, Robert Macfarlane’s The Lost Words and Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give.
The lifestyle book of the year sees a star-studded line-up with Jamie Oliver, Russell Brand, Fearne Cotton, Nigel Slater and Joe Wicks all nominated, as well as “mega monk” Haemin Sunim. Peep Show star Robert Webb and BBC Radio 1 DJ Greg James are two more celebrity names among the nominees, both shortlisted in the audiobook of the year category.
Launched in 2016, the British Book Awards are decided by seven panels of judges who select a winner out of six entries from each of the seven categories. A separate panel will choose the overall book of the year.
Philip Jones, panel chair and editor of The Bookseller, which organises the awards, said: “The true range, breadth and brilliance of writing and publishing is demonstrated in these shortlists, from the unexpected triumphs to the brand juggernauts. The year 2017 was marked by big books that got bigger, break-outs that broke further, and conversation starters that spoke louder.”
Winners will be announced at a ceremony on May 14th in London.
The Books of the Year shortlists:
Fiction
The Break by Marian Keyes (Michael Joseph)
Birdcage Walk by Helen Dunmore (Hutchinson/Windmill)
Winter by Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton)
How To Stop Time by Matt Haig (Canongate)
Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor (Fourth Estate)
City of Friends by Joanna Trolllope (Mantle)
Fiction: Debut
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (Viking)
Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney (Faber & Faber)
My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent (Fourth Estate)
Sirens by Joseph Knox (Doubleday)
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman (Harper Fiction)
Why Mummy Drinks by Gill Sims (Harper Non-Fiction)
Fiction: Crime & Thriller
The Midnight Line by Lee Child (Bantam Press)
The Dry by Jane Harper (Abacus)
Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough (Harper Fiction)
Spook Street by Mick Herron (John Murray)
He Said/She Said by Erin Kelly (Mulholland)
The Girl Before by J P Delaney (Quercus)
Children's
La Belle Sauvage: The Book of Dust Volume One by Philip Pullman and illustrator Chris Wormell (David Fickling Books in Association with Penguin Random House Children's)
The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and illustrator Jackie Morris (Hamish Hamilton)
Oi Cat! By Kes Gray and illustrator Jim Field (Hodder Children's Books)
Bad Dad by David Walliams and illustrator Tony Ross (HarperCollins Children's)
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (Walker Books)
Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls by Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo (Particular Books)
Non-Fiction: Lifestyle
5 Ingredients by Jamie Oliver (Michael Jospeh)
The Things You Can Only See When You Slow Down: How To Be Calm in a Busy World by Haemin Sunim (Penguin Life)
The Christmas Chronicles: Notes, Stories and 100 Essential Recipes For Midwinter by Nigel Slater (Fourth Estate)
Cooking For Family and Friends by Joe Wicks (Bluebird)
Recovery: Freedom From Our Addictions by Russell brand (Bluebird)
Happy: Finding Joy in Every Day and Letting Go of Perfect by Fearne Cotton (Orion Spring)
Non-Fiction: Narrative
Ask An Astronaut: My Guide to Life in Space by Tim Peake (Century)
Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge (Bloomsbury Circus)
The Secret Life of Cows by Rosamund Young ( Faber & Faber)
I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes With Death by Maggie O'Farrell (Tinder Press)
This Is Going To Hurt: Secret Diaries Of A Junior Doctor by Adam Kay (Picador)
What Does This Button Do? By Bruce Dickinson (Harper Non-Fiction)
Audiobook
La Belle Sauvage: The Book of Dust by Philip Pullman, narrated by Michael Sheen (Penguin Random House Audio)
How To Be A Boy by Robert Webb (author and narrator) (Audible Studios)
Kid Normal by Greg James and Chris Smith (W F Howes/Nudged Audiobooks)
Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, narrated by Stephen Fry (Audible)
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman, narrated by Cathleen McCarron (HarperCollins)
The Girl Before by J P Delaney, narrated by Emilia Fox, Finty Williams, Lise Aagaard Knudsen (Quercus).
