Our Favourite Book Prizes
It is great to celebrate great books and the burgeoning list of book awards gives us the chance to do just that. Our list is not complete, but these are the major book prizes that we get most excited about.
Each year we ask our booksellers which are their favourite book in four categories; fiction, nonfiction, children’s and debut. These were their favourite books of 2018. The overall winner was Everything Under by Daisy Johnson, an atmospheric tale inspired by Sophocles.
CATEGORY WINNERS 2018
The Kitschies reward the year’s most progressive, intelligent and entertaining speculative fiction that contain elements of the speculative or fantastic. Blackwell’s is very proud to sponsor these awards.
Awards Directors Glen Mehn and Leila Abu el Hawa said
“Seven years of giving out tentacles has taught us that there are publishers, big and small, taking risks and bringing out amazing books that aren’t afraid to blow your expectations of what speculative fiction can do to your mind.“
Red Tentacle (Best Novel) WINNER ‘Circe’ by Madeline Miller
Judge, Lucy Smee, said
“With Circe, Madeleine Miller has created a work of true genius, an overused word that I truly mean here. You think you know something of Ancient Greek mythology, but then the story, the characters, the world of immortals are all redrawn in a way you had never imagined but that upon reading, you realised you deeply needed. Circe isn’t simply the retelling of Greek myth from a woman’s point of view and it isn’t simply the story of Circe’s long life well told. It is a deep, languorous, gripping, familiar, revelatory, feminine epic woven together with pure poetry.”
Golden Tentacle (Début) WINNER ‘Frankenstein in Baghdad’ by Ahmad Sadawi, Jonathan Wright (translator)
Red and Gold Tentacle Judge Daniel Carpenter said
“Even amongst five exceptional debut novels, Frankenstein in Baghdad stood out to the judges, managing to not only reconfigure the original science-fiction novel, but to use the Frankenstein story to explore the complexities of conflict in the Middle East. It is a horrific novel at times, absurd too. Saadawi’s true skill is the way he manages to blend all of the elements together to create a masterpiece of a book. It’s a truly remarkable achievement, giving a bolt of new life to both the post 9/11 Iraq novel, and to the titular monster himself. .”
Inky Tentacle (Cover Design) WINNER ‘Killing Commendatore’ design by Suzanne Dean
Inky Judge Dapo Adeola said:
“It was a tough decision between the last five books, however, Killing Commendatore manages to use all the elements and space available on the cover to full effect and in a manner that manages to be fresh and varied yet works together harmoniously. The combination of different artists work has definitely been very well utilised. ”
VIEW ALL SHORTLISTS
The prize, which launched in 1969, aims to promote the finest in fiction by rewarding the best novel of the year written in English and published in the United Kingdom.
WINNER 2018
‘Anna Burns’ utterly distinctive voice challenges conventional thinking and form in surprising and immersive prose. It is a story of brutality, sexual encroachment and resistance threaded with mordant humour. Set in a society divided against itself, Milkman explores the insidious forms oppression can take in everyday life.’ Kwame Anthony Appiah, 2018 Chair of judges
The Baillie Gifford Prize aims to reward the best of non-fiction and is open to authors of any nationality. It covers all non-fiction in the areas of current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the arts.
WINNER 2018
‘This history reads like an academic thriller written by Malcolm Gladwell. Without losing any detail or nuance, Plokhy has a knack for making complicated things simple while still profound. As moving as it is painstakingly researched, this book is a tour de force and a cracking read’ Viv Groskop, The Observer
The Wellcome Book Prize is an annual award, open to new works of fiction or non-fiction. To be eligible for entry, a book should have a central theme that engages with some aspect of medicine, health or illness. This can cover many genres of writing — including crime, romance, popular science, sci fi and history.
We think that the shortlist for the 2019 prize is the most interesting and most exciting yet — more details of each of the six titles can be seen here.
The prize is celebrating its tenth year, see all the previous winners:
The Costa Book Awards is one of the UK’s most prestigious and popular literary prizes and recognises some of the most enjoyable books of the year. The prize has five categories — First Novel, Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children’s Book — with one of the five winning books selected as the overall Costa Book of the Year.
OVERALL WINNER 2018
‘Quite remarkable — the story of one traumatic childhood, deeply moving, and told with great dexterity, allowing the wisdoms of today to run parallel with the absorbing narrative of wartime events. The surviving photographs provide an intimacy — bring these families to life — as does the author’s determined concern.’ Penelope Lively
The Women’s Prize for Fiction was known as the Orange Prize for Fiction between 1996 and 2012 and the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction between 2014 and 2017. It celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in women’s writing from throughout the world.
The winner will be announced on June 5th.
LONGLIST 2019
The Orwell Prizes are the UK’s most prestigious prizes for political writing. Every year, The Orwell Foundation awards prizes for the work which comes closest to George Orwell’s ambition ‘to make political writing into an art’.
This year it is launching a new prize for political fiction, to be named The Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.The Orwell Prize for Books will be renamed The Orwell Prize for Political Writing, and open exclusively to non-fiction.
WINNER 2018
‘… what has made McGarvey such a particular figure of attention is his political message. As the old mainstream desperately seeks a response to Trump and Brexit, McGarvey, a life-long radical socialist, seems to offer an antidote to populist anger that transcends left and right. But his urgently written, articulate and emotional book is a bracing contribution to the debate about how to fix our broken politics. The Financial Times
The Hugo Awards, first presented in 1953 and presented annually since 1955, are science fiction’s most prestigious award. The Hugo Awards are voted on by members of the World Science Fiction Convention, which is also responsible for administering them.
BEST NOVEL 2018
‘I ate these sentences up and only felt hungrier for more: the affirmation of anger, the recognition of hidden horrors, the rejection of docile complicity. …The depth and breadth of Jemisin’s achievement with this trilogy is geologic.These books are a revolution in which I want to take part.’ Amal El-Mohtar is the Hugo Award-winning author of The Honey Month
A full list of Hugo Award winners can be seen here
The Prix Goncourt is the most prestigious literary award in France and is awarded annually to the ‘best and most imaginative prose work of the year’.
WINNER 2018
‘C’est un excellent choix pour le prix Goncourt ! Là on a vraiment un roman-roman, à la différence de tous ces avatars d’autofiction… Ici il y a des personnages créés de toutes pièces et auxquels on s’attache !
De plus Nicolas Mathieu utilise les ressorts de la série télé, comme un storyteller, à l’américaine, avec des cliffhangers. Il n’y a absolument pas de meurtre, et pourtant on est tenu !’ Arnaud Viviant
The 2017 winner is now available in English.
‘A tightly paced and gripping read . . . Vuillard has written a magnificently entertaining account that manages to capture the wild and uneven emotional climate of the 1930s and speaks too to our own era of liars, demagogues and politics as farce, which, as Vuillard deftly shows us, can slide all too quickly into tragedy.’ Andrew Hussey, Observer
The Man Booker International Prize was established in 2005 and in 2016 became a prize for fiction in translation, awarded annually for a single work, translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland.
WINNER 2018
‘In the vein of WG Sebald [Flights] knits together snippets of fiction, narrative and reflection to meditate on human anatomy and the meaning of travel: this is a delicate, ingenious book that is constantly making new connections.’ Justine Jordan, Guardian
The shortlist for the 2019 prize has been announced, Bettany Hughes, chair of the 2019 Man Booker International Prize judging panel, says:
‘Wisdom in all its forms is here. Unexpected and unpredictable narratives compelled us to choose this vigorous shortlist. Subversive and intellectually ambitious with welcome flashes of wit, each book nourishes creative conversation. We were struck by the lucidity and supple strength of all the translations.’
