Flanagan and Macdonald on Waterstones shortlist

Man Booker Prize winner The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Samuel Johnson Prize winner H is for Hawk are amongst the titles competing to win the Waterstones Book of the Year 2014.

There are eight titles this year on the shortlist, voted for by Waterstones’ booksellers– two adult fiction, five non-fiction and one children’s book. The eight nominations are up from six the previous year due to the “strength of publishing in 2014”, the company said.

The winning title is sure to receive a hefty sales boost after being displayed and supported in stores across the Waterstones estate. Last year's winner Stoner by John Williams (Vintage) saw a 1,000% sales increase throughout Waterstones after being announced as the winner in 2013.

Jessie Burton’s debut The Miniaturist (Picador) joins 2014 Man Booker Prize winner by Richard Flanagan (Chatto & Windus) as the adult fiction titles on the shortlist. Meanwhile Everyday Sexism by Laura Bates (Simon & Schuster), The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories by Marina Keegan (Simon & Schuster) and Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty (Harvard University Press) and Helen Macdonald's H is for Hawk (Jonathan Cape) represent the non-fiction shortlistings, alongside cookery title Persiana: Recipes from the Middle East & Beyond by Sabrina Ghayour (Mitchell Beazley). Children’s title Once Upon An Alphabet by Oliver Jeffers (Harper Collins Children’s Books) completes the list.

James Daunt, managing director of Waterstones, said: “The judgement of our booksellers is always interesting and, as this year, sometimes surprising. That we were obliged to extend the shortlist to eight is testament to the passionate support these books have earned in our bookshops. Any one may be crowned our Book of the Year with pride but - my goodness – it will be for a variety of reasons: all is well in the world of bookselling!”

The shortlist was voted for by Waterstones booksellers but the winner will be chosen by a Waterstones panel headed by James Daunt, managing director of Waterstones and revealed on 2nd December.