The British Book Awards – aka The Nibbies – are the UK publishing industry’s leading awards, and this year’s ceremony is all set for Monday 29 June. The eight Book of the Year winners will be decided by separate panels, with judges including star food critic Jay Rayner, author and broadcaster Loyd Grossman and Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff, head of editorial at gal- dem. A separate panel will go on to choose the overall Book of the Year, where The High Low podcast co- host Pandora Sykes is judging alongside TLS editor Stig Abell and former MP Luciana Berger.

In even more exciting news, this year the Crime and Thriller Book of the Year is supported by Stylist. 

So who made the shortlist? Well, queen of crime Val McDermid’s throne is challenged by debut Nigerian novelist Oyinkan Braithwaite’s LA Times Book Prize-winning My Sister the Serial Killer and Lucy Foley’s highly acclaimed first foray into crime, The Hunting Party. 

Last year’s Author of the Year, Lee Child, is also in the running for Crime & Thriller Book of the Year, with Blue Moon.

Check back in on Monday to see the winner of the Crime and Thriller Book of the Year, supported by Stylist. 

Philip Jones, editor of The Bookseller and chair of the judges at the British Book Awards, said: “This year’s varied and diverse crop of shortlisted titles show publishing at its absolute best, launching débuts, building brands, seeking out new audiences and, perhaps most importantly, driving sales.

“The year was undoubtedly led by non-fiction behemoths such as Pinch of Nom, Mrs Hinch, and Elton John, along with brands such as David Walliams, Philip Pullman, and Margaret Atwood, but beneath these mega-sellers there was some quieter triumphs, Queenie becoming a remarkable breakthrough hit for its publisher Orion, the superlative debuts Fleishman is in Trouble, The Confessions of Frannie Langton, My Sister the Serial Killer, and of course, the huge surprise of the year The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse. I won’t pretend that we are not in a tough spot right now, but these shortlists indicate a bright future for many authors, as well as the sector in general.”

So who else has been shortlisted? The Fiction Book of the Year battle is between Bernardine Evaristo (Girl, Woman, Other), Margaret Atwood (The Testaments), Philip Pullman (The Secret Commonwealth) and Jojo Moyes (The Giver of Stars), alongside Heather Morris with Cilka’s Journey, a sequel to the Sunday Times bestselling The Tattooist of Auschwitz.

Lady Anne Glenconner’s account of accompanying Princess Margaret on state occasions and foreign tours for more than thirty years, Lady in Waiting, will compete with Elton John’s tell-all autobiography Me, and Adam Kay’s festive follow-up to his million-copy selling junior doctor diaries, Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas for the Non-Fiction: Narrative Book of the Year trophy.

In Non-Fiction: Lifestyle, Instagram cleaning guru Sophie Hinchcliffe’s Hinch Yourself Happy sits alongside the cartoonist and illustrator Charlie Mackesy’s New York Times bestseller The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse, while champion of healthy school meals Jamie Oliver faces newcomers Shamil and Kavi Thakrar and Naved Nasir with the first cookbook from their beloved Bombay café chain, Dishoom.

The superstar of children’s books David Walliams lines up with his The Beast of Buckingham Palace (illustrated by Tony Ross) next to the Foyles Children’s Book of the Year 2019 winner The Good Thieves by Katherine Rundell, as well as recent World Book Day authors and founder of the Making Herstory charity, Onjali Q. Raúf, in Children’s Fiction. In Children’s Non-Fiction & Illustrated, The Smeds and the Smoos by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler is up against You Got This by writer, podcaster, author and mental health champion Bryony Gordon.

In Début Book of the Year, first novels from opposite sides of the pond, both longlisted for this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction, sit together – Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams and Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner.

For Audiobook of the Year, Margaret Atwood is shortlisted twice, for both The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments, sitting alongside documentary-maker Louis Theroux and his self-deprecating autobiography, Gotta Get Theroux This and heavyweights Bill Bryson and Philip Pullman.

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