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Works by Labour leadership hopeful Jess Phillips, James O’Brien, David Cameron and Caroline Criado Perez have been shortlisted for the delayed 2019 Parliamentary Book Awards.
Launched by the Booksellers Association and the Publishers Association in 2016, the annual awards range across three categories and are voted for by parliamentarians. The 2019 prize was due to take place in December last year but was pushed back because of the election.
Phillips is nominated in the Best Non-Biographical Book by a Parliamentarian category for Truth to Power: 7 Ways to Call Time on B.S. (Monoray). She faces competition from Love Without End: A Story of Heloise and Abelard by Melvyn Bragg (Sceptre) and Women of Westminster: The MPs who Changed Politics by Rachel Reeves (I B Tauris).
Former prime minister Cameron gets a nod in the Best Biography or Memoir by a Parliamentarian category with For the Record (William Collins) as he goes up against This is Our Story: How the Fans Kept Their Hearts Beating by Ian Murray (Luath Press) and A British Subject: How to Make It As An Immigrant In the Best Country in the World by Dolar Popat (Biteback).
The Best Political Book by a Non-Parliamentarian award sees Criado Perez’s Royal Society prize-winning Invisible Women (Chatto & Windus) and O’Brien’s How to be Right: In A World Gone Wrong (W H Allen) take on My Name is Why by Lemn Sissay (Canongate).
Publishers were invited to nominate books and authors for the awards, and the shortlist was drawn up by booksellers.
Meryl Halls, m.d. of the Booksellers Association, said: "The Parliamentary Book Awards recognise the high quality of political writing today, and we look forward to celebrating this year’s fascinating shortlist. Selected by British booksellers, this shortlists really show the issues that are important to the public today; identity, truth, gender politics, and community. We are excited to see who our parliamentarians vote for in the coming weeks."
Voting is now open for parliamentarians to decide the winner in each category and the awards will be presented at a parliamentary reception in the House of Commons on 26th February.
Publishers Association c.e.o. Stephen Lotinga said: "The Parliamentary Book Awards were created to celebrate and reward excellence across all areas of political writing. This year’s shortlist of books provides us with important insights into the turbulent events of recent years and shines a light on ideas of the nature of power, identity and truth in politics. I look forward to celebrating all of these important books, their authors, publishers and booksellers at the House of Commons in February."
Last year’s awards saw wins for Tessa Jowell and Frances D’Souza’s The Power of Politicians (Haus), Why We Get the Wrong Politicians by Isabel Hardman (Atlantic) and Jesse Norman’s Adam Smith: What He Thought and Why it Matters (Penguin).