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Garmus scoops two at Books are My Bag Readers Awards
Bonnie Garmus triumphed at the Books are My Bag Readers Awards, scooping both Breakthrough Author and Readers’ Choice for her debut Lessons in Chemistry (Doubleday).
The awards took place at Foyles, Charing Cross Road, London, hosted by broadcaster and presenter Radzi Chinyanganya. The Books Are My Bag Readers Awards celebrate the best books of the year. Booksellers curate shortlists, which then go to a public vote.
Gabrielle Zevin triumphed in the Fiction category with her bestselling gaming novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (Chatto & Windus). Strong Female Character (Brazen), comedian Fern Brady’s memoir on sexism and neurodiversity, was crowned the winner in the Non-Fiction category, while the YA award went to Gwen and Art Are Not in Love (Bloomsbury YA) by Lex Croucher.
Katherine Rundell won the Children’s category with Impossible Creatures (Bloomsbury Childrens) while Scottish poet Michael Pedersen took home the Poetry award for his collection The Cat Prince (Corsair), exploring the beauty and devastation of love, loss, friendship and cats.
Garmus said: “I can’t begin to express what it means to me to win both the Breakthrough Author Award and the Readers’ Choice Award from Books Are My Bag. Booksellers change lives. Every time someone walks through their door, they connect them to a wider world in a way digital technology can’t. Thank you, booksellers – for maintaining human connections, for selling beautiful, tangible objects that matter, for keeping our communities alive.”
Rundell added: “It’s such a joy to win this award – especially so as it’s curated by booksellers, and chosen by readers. Booksellers are among my favourite people – they are doctors for the human heart, able to prescribe the right book that will meet our hunger and hope - they can find you exactly the right jokes, the right texture of story, that you are searching for. And to have been voted for by readers is a true honour.”
Now in their eighth year, the Books Are My Bag Readers Awards shortlist was selected by a judging panel of booksellers, including Nick Campbell (Waterstones), Kirsty Hurst (W H Smith), Peri Cimen (Green Heart Books), Juliana Ocampo (Stanfords), Richard Smartt (Thee Book Ends), Red Newsom (Blackwell) and Marie Moser (The Edinburgh Bookshops).
The awards by sponsored by National Book Tokens. Books Are My Bag is a year-round, consumer-facing campaign, run by the Booksellers Association of the UK and Ireland to raise awareness of the work booksellers do within their communities and to encourage people to do their book-shopping with their local bookshop.
