Carty-Williams, Hughes and Macfarlane books shortlisted for Foyles Books of the Year

Queenie (Trapeze) by Candice Carty-Williams, a newly illustrated edition of Ted Hughes' The Iron Man (Faber) and Robert Macfarlane's Underland (Hamish Hamilton) have been included on the shortlists for Foyles Books of the Year [see below for full listings].

The shortlists for fiction, non-fiction and children's also feature novels Black Leopard, Red Wolf (Hamish Hamilton) by Marlon James and Lanny (Faber) by Max Porter. Non-fiction titles include Caroline Criado Perez's Invisible Women (Chatto & Windus) and climate change title The Uninhabitable Earth by New York Magazine deputy editor David Wallace-Wells. Shortlisted children's books feature Malorie Blackman's Crossfire (Penguin) and Nathan Byron and Dapo Adeola's picturebook Look Up! (Puffin).

The three winning novels will be announced at the end of November. Foyles explains: “Whittled from the books published or available to us by the time of selection, the shortlists come together through a definitely-not-scientific combination of Foyles bestsellers, staff vote, reader response and lots and lots of arguing discussion. Together they form a snapshot of a stand-out year: a year of brand new classics, game-changing debate, of sheer literary splendour, and humanity.”

Last year, Convenience Store Woman (Portobello Books) by Japanese author Sayaka Murata won in the Fiction category, while british rapper, activist and author Akala took the retailer’s Non-Fiction Book of the Year accolade for Natives Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire (Two Roads). The children’s prize went to Nigerian-American author Tomi Adeyemi for her debut Children of Blood and Bone (Pan Macmillan).

The complete 2019 Foyles Books of the Year shortlists comprise:

Fiction
The Nickel Boys (Fleet) by Colson Whitehead
Queenie (Trapeze) by Candice Carty-Williams
The Binding (The Borough Press) by Bridget Collins
Black Leopard, Red Wolf (Hamish Hamilton) by Marlon James
Tokyo Ueno Station (Tilted Axis Press) by Yu Miri
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (Vintage) by Ocean Vuong
Lanny (Faber & Faber) by Max Porter

Non-fiction
It’s Not About The Burqa (Picador) edited by Mariam Khan
Underland: A Deep Time Journey (Hamish Hamilton) by Robert Macfarlane
Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men (Chatto & Windus) by Caroline Criado Perez
Superior: The Return of Race Science (Fourth Estate) by Angela Saini
Three Women (Bloomsbury) by Lisa Taddeo
The Uninhabitable Earth (Penguin) by David Wallace-Wells
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (Profile) By Shoshana Zuboff

Children’s & YA
Crossfire (Penguin) by Malorie Blackman
Look Up! (Puffin) by Nathan Bryon and illustrated by Dapo Adeola
Kind (Scholastic) by Alison Green
The Deathless Girls (Orion Children’s Books) by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Don’t Worry, Little Crab (Walker) by Chris Haughton
The Iron Man (Faber & Faber) by Ted Hughes and illustrated by Chris Mould
The Good Thieves (Bloomsbury Children's) by Katherine Rundell