Holgate, Stibbe and McShane to judge British Book Industry Awards

Sunday Times literary editor Andrew Holgate, author Nina Stibbe, and Rik McShane, retail director at Waterstones, will help judge the The British Book Industry Awards' inaugural Book of the Year. The winning title will be selected from the winners of the four category awards—Fiction, Début Fiction, Non-fiction, and Children’s—with the final judging to take place on 8th April at the Charlotte Street Hotel.

The trio join Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty and previously chair of the Baileys Prize, and Antonia Byatt, literature festival director of the Cheltenham Literature Festival, as external judges. They will be joined by The Bookseller’s contributing editor Cathy Rentzenbrink, chair of the Books of the Year, online editor and producer and deputy chair of the Books of the Year Sarah Shaffi, and editor Philip Jones.

In total 32 titles have been shortlisted for this year’s Books of the Year across four categories. Individual winners will be announced on 9th May at Grosvenor House, with the overall winner crowned at the end of the evening.

Rentzenbrink said: “As a professional reader I look at huge amounts of information about new books and read as many as I can. I always read hopefully and I’d like everything to do well, but the sad fact is that there are more books than readers and agonisingly few books will succeed in catching the imagination of the public. This award is about looking at the books that have managed to do that and acknowledging the huge team effort that sits behind a bestselling or critically acclaimed work. It’s a thrill and an honour to be chairing the brilliant and knowledgeable judges who will look at all the category winners to anoint a book of the year.”

Holgate added: "I'm really delighted to be involved in this prize, which is the logical next step for The Bookseller's Industry Awards and helps celebrate the actual books towards which all our efforts are directed."

The British Book Industry Awards represent a high point of the book trade’s year. A time when all the business comes together to celebrate its achievements. To win an award is the ultimate recognition of an individual or an organisation’s excellence. For a complete list of categories www.thebookseller.com/british-book-industry-awards/submissions">see here.

The shortlists for the Books of the Year, which consist of eight books in each of the four categories and honour not just the author and illustrator of a title but the entire publishing team, are:

Children's Book of the Year

Harry Potter, illustrated edition by J K Rowling and Jim Kay (Bloomsbury)
Username: Evie by Joe Sugg (Hodder & Stoughton)
Mog's Christmas Calamity by Judith Kerr (HarperCollins Children’s Books)
The Shepherd's Crown by Terry Pratchett (Doubleday Children’s)
Grandpa's Great Escape by David Walliams (HarperCollins Children’s Books)
The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge (Macmillan Children’s Books)
My Brother is a Superhero by David Solomons (Nosy Crow)
A Boy Called Christmas by Matt Haig (Canongate)

Début Fiction Book of the Year

The Girl in the Red Coat by Kate Hamer (Faber & Faber)
In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware (Harvill Secker)
The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
Grief is the Thing With Feathers by Max Porter (Faber & Faber)
I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh (Sphere)
The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma (One)
The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley (John Murray)
Disclaimer by Renée Knight (Doubleday)

Non-fiction Book of the Year

Lean In 15 by Joe Wicks (Bluebird)
Deliciously Ella by Ella Woodward (Hodder & Stoughton)
SPQR by Mary Beard (Profile)
The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson (Transworld)
Norwegian Wood by Lars Mitting and Robert Ferguson (MacLehose Press)
Gut by Giulia Enders and David Shaw (Scribe)
Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig (Canongate)
Ladybird Books by Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris (Michael Joseph)

Fiction Book of the Year

A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson (Transworld)
Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee (William Heinemann)
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins (Doubleday)
The Green Road by Anne Enright (Vintage)
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (Picador)
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro (Faber & Faber)
After You by Jojo Moyes (Michael Joseph)
Grey by EL James (Arrow)