You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
R F Kuang, Sebastian Barry and Katherine Rundell shortlisted for Indie Book Awards 2024
R F Kuang, Sebastian Barry, Alice Oseman and Katherine Rundell have been shortlisted for the 2024 Indie Book Awards.
The awards are curated by independent bookshops, and run as part of Independent Bookshop Week (IBW), which is organised by the Booksellers Association from 15th-22nd June. They celebrate the best paperbacks of the summer across fiction, non-fiction, children’s fiction and picture books.
A judging panel of indie booksellers will decide on the four winners, to be announced on 20th June on Scala Radio, on the Penny Smith show.
In the fiction category, Kuang is in the running with Yellowface (The Borough Press) and Babel (HarperVoyager). She is joined by Emilia Hart, shortlisted for Weyward (The Borough Press), and Monica Heisey, on the list for Really, Good Actually (Fourth Estate). Barry is also on this year’s shortlist, with Old God’s Time (Faber & Faber), alongside Dan Jones with Essex Dogs (Aries).
Rundell’s The Golden Mole: And Other Vanishing Treasure, illustrated by Talya Baldwin (Faber & Faber) is shortlisted in the non-fiction category, as are Christian Lewis’ Finding Hildasay (Pan) and Natalie Haynes’ Divine Might (Picador). Also featured in this category is Clive Myrie’s Everything is Everything (Hodder & Stoughton), Helen Rebanks’ The Farmer’s Wife (Faber & Faber) , and Tim Marshall’s The Future of Geography: How Power and Politics in Space will Change the World (Elliott & Thompson).
The Adult categories judging panel comprises Tim Batcup of Cover-to-Cover in Swansea, Yasmine Srouji of Bookbag in Exeter and Claire Grint of Hexham’s Cogito Books, as well as Nadia Jones from the South London Gallery Bookshop, and Rebecca Roberts of Night Owl Books in East Linton.
Barry commented: “Having won this deeply heartening award twice, it feels like an instance of wild kindness to be shortlisted again. If literature were a religion, independent bookshops would be the beautiful churches.”
In the children’s fiction list, Hiba Noor Khan’s Safiyyah’s War (Andersen Press) has been featured this year, alongside Sam Sedgman’s The Clockwork Conspiracy (Bloomsbury Children’s Books), and A M Dassu’s Kicked Out (Old Barn Books). Moreover, Oseman’s Heartstopper Volume 5 is vying for the prize, as is Matt Goodfellow’s The Final Year, which is illustrated by Joe Todd-Stanton (Otter-Barry Books). The final book in this category is Frank Cottrell-Boyce’s The Wonder Brothers, illustrated by Steven Lenton (Macmillan Children’s Books).
Oseman said of her nomintation: “In the age of convenience, it’s more important than ever to shop indie; they’re not only sellers of books but also providers of community spaces, curators of local events, and safe havens when you’re out and about. I am so honoured to have been shortlisted for the Indie Book Awards and I am hugely grateful to the indie bookshops across the UK for their ongoing support of my work.”
The awards also include a picture book category, which features shortlisted titles including Benji Davies’ The Great Storm (Simon & Schuster Children’s Books), Harry Woodgate’s Grandad’s Pride (Andersen Press), and Jack Kurland’s The Cat Who Couldn’t Be Bothered (Frances Lincoln Children’s Books: First Editions). Robert Tregoning’s The Dress in the Window, illustrated by Pippa Curnick (Oxford University Press), is also on the shortlist, in the running alongside Mariesa Dulak’s There’s a Tiger on the Train, illustrated by Rebecca Cobb (Faber & Faber), and Rachel Bright’s Snail in Space, illustrated by Nadia Shireen (Simon & Schuster Children’s Books).
The children’s categories will be judged by Jenny Eagles of Owl and Pyramid Bookshop in Seaton, and Helen Tamblyn-Saville of the Wonderland Bookshop in Retford, who will be joined by Gordon Stewart of the Wedale Bookshop in Stow, Denise Evans-Barr of the Custom House Bookshop in east London, and Keira Andrews of Reading Roots in Wetherby.
Emma Bradshaw, head of campaigns at the Booksellers Association, said: "The 2024 shortlist is filled to the brim with fantastically talented authors in all their varying categories and genres. Carefully selected with the expert knowledge of indie booksellers and in the spirit of Independent Bookshop Week, we definitely encourage everyone to delve into this list of must-reads this summer and to visit their closest indie bookshop to buy their copies.”
