Honours for Waterstone, Ishiguro, Beard and Calder

Tim Waterstone, founder of the eponymous bookshop chain Waterstones, has been recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List with a knighthood for "services to bookselling and charity". Author Kazuo Ishiguro - awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature last year - has also received a knighthood, for services to literature.

“I’m feeling absolutely great about it," Waterstone told The Bookseller. "At the age of 79, it’s lovely to have a pat on the head like that. It’s all about Waterstones, it was a big thing in my life and it’s lovely." He added: "It was a complete surprise."

The list, recognising the achievements of a wide range of "extraordinary" people across the United Kingdom, also awards a damehood to Professor Mary Beard, author of Women and Power (Profile), for services to the study of classical civilisation.

There are honours too for authors Jeanette Winterson, Ken Follet (both pictured below) and Kate Clanchy. Winterson and Follet are awarded a CBE respectively "for services to literature" and "services to literature and charity".

"I am very pleased and proud to receive this honour for doing something I love – making books and stories as entertaining and accessible as possible," said Follet. "Reading is a hugely important part of my life and I am glad to have helped others to enjoy it too."

There is meanwhile an MBE for Clanchy for "services to literature and school", an accolade evidenced by the publication by Picador on Thursday (14th June) of England: Poems From A School, her edited anthology of poems from young poets at Oxford Spires Academy.

"I was very surprised to be nominated for an MBE and also very grateful," Clanchy commented. "I have worked in all sorts of literary fields over the years – poetry, memoir, fiction, reviewing – but the most consistent thread has been my work in schools. I like to think this award honours that, and the importance of literature and creativity in the classroom."

Bloomsbury co-founder Liz Calder picked up a CBE, for "services to literature", while Caroline Brazier, the British Library's chief librarian, was nominated for a CBE for "services to librarianship and higher education". Brazier is stepping down shortly from the role after 15 years of service.