The Book Trade Awards The YA Book Prize The British Book Design and Production Awards
The British Book Awards or Nibbies are literary awards for the best UK writers and their works, administered by The Bookseller. The awards have had several previous names, owners and sponsors since being launched in 1990, including the National Book Awards from 2010 to 2014.
Book award history
The British Book Awards, or Nibbies, ran from 1990 to 2009 and were founded by the editor of Publishing News.[1] The awards were then acquired by Agile Marketing, which renamed them the National Book Awards and called them the Galaxy National Book Awards (2010–2011) and later the Specsavers National Book Awards (2012–2014) after their headline sponsors.[2] There were no National Book Awards after 2014;[3] in 2017 the awards were acquired by The Bookseller from the estate of Publishing News' founder, Fred Newman, and renamed back to the British Book Awards or Nibbies.[1]
In 2018, a Specsavers National Book Awards ceremony was held on 20 November but was unrelated to the Nibbies.[4][5]
In 2005, The Bookseller launched a separate scheme, The Bookseller Retail Awards (winners not listed in this article). In 2010, running parallel to the National Book Awards, The Bookseller unified The Nibbies with its retail awards to produce The Bookseller Industry Awards (winners not listed in this article).[1]
The awards are known as the Nibbies because of the golden nib-shaped trophy given to winners.[6]
Name history
1990–2009: British Book Awards
2010–2011: Galaxy National Book Awards
2012–2014: Specsavers National Book Awards
2015–2016: no awards
2017–Pres: British Book Awards
Award winners (recent)
2024 Books of the Year
The shortlisted nominees were announced on 8 March 2024.[7][8][9] Once again the in-person ceremony was livestreamed.[10]Katherine Rundell was named Author of the Year, the first time that a children's writer received up the accolade since Philip Pullman in 2018.[11] In the run up to the awards ceremony, a daily podcast featuring nominated authors was made available online.[12]
The shortlisted nominees were announced on 17 March 2023.[15][16][17] Once again the in-person ceremony was livestreamed.[18] In 2023 the Non-fiction: Lifestyle Book of the Year category was expanded to include Illustrated books.
Salman Rushdie was recognised with a special Freedom to Publish honour.[19] It is only the second time that the British Book Awards regime has conferred this prize, previously being awarded in 2022 to HarperCollins UK and its publishing director Arabella Pike "in recognition of their defense of [their] authors against interference from Russian oligarchs, and for their ‘robust defense of investigative non-fiction and publishing in the public interest."[20]
The First to Die at the End by Adam Silvera (Simon & Schuster Children's Books UK)
Skandar and the Unicorn Thief by A. F. Steadman (Simon & Schuster Children's Books UK)
Loki: A Bad God's Guide to Being Good by Louie Stowell (Walker Books)
A Better Day: Your Positive Mental Health Handbookby Dr Alex George and illustrated by The Boy Fitz Hammond (Wren & Rook, Hachette)
Am I Made of Stardust?: Dr Maggie Answers the Big Questions for Young Scientists by Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock and illustrator Chelen Ecija (Buster Books)
Girlhood Unfiltered by Ebinehita Iyere (Knights Of)
The shortlisted nominees were announced on 25 March 2022.[23][24][25] This year marked the return to the first live awards ceremony since 2019 but was also broadcast as a livestream.[26]
A new category of Discover Book of the Year was introduced aiming to showcase traditionally underrepresented authors with a particular focus on the work of indie presses and imprints.[24] Alongside this, also new for 2022, was a split of the Children's Awards into non-fiction and illustrated, in addition to the fiction award, and a split of the Audiobook of the Year award into Fiction audiobook of the Year and Non-fiction audiobook of the Year.
The shortlisted nominees were announced on 19 March 2021.[30][31] Once again the ceremony was held online due to the continuing restrictions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. It took place on 13 May 2021 at the Battersea Arts Centre, London.[32]
This year saw the addition of a new award category: Page-turner of the Year.[33]
The shortlisted nominees were announced on 20 March 2020.[38] Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the live event due to be held on 18 May 2020 was cancelled and the ceremony was held online over a month later in June 2020.[39][40] This year's ceremony was named Event of the Year at the 2020 Independent Publisher Awards.[33]
In celebration of the Nibbies' 30th anniversary, 2020 saw a special award called "30 from 30" to celebrate the best of the best, where a longlist of 30 previous winners was narrowed down by a public poll to a shortlist of 10 nominees, plus a wildcard entry (This Is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay), that had not taken home a trophy in the past.[38][41]
2020 was a notable year for the Nibbies in that except for illustrator Axel Scheffler, who won with his longtime co-creator Julia Donaldson, the programme's entire slate of authorial honours went to women and the Book of the Year and Author of the Year categories had their first ever black winners.[42][43][44]
The shortlisted nominees were announced on 22 March 2019. The awards were now simplified into just two divisions, Books of the Year (the Nibbies) and The Trade Awards.[50][51]
2019 saw the Children's Book of the Year category split into two categories: Children's Fiction Book of the Year and Children's Illustrated and Non-fiction Book of the Year.[52] This year also saw Becoming, the memoir by former first lady Michelle Obama winning two awards.
The shortlisted nominees were announced on 16 March 2018.[59][60][61] Again the awards comprised four divisions: Books of the Year (the Nibbies), Great People, Bringing Books to Readers and Publishing Success.
New categories of Author of the Year, Illustrator of the Year were added this year. Audiobook of the Year and an award for Overall Book of the Year from all the category winners were also reintroduced after being omitted in 2017.[62] This year also saw a joint winner for the Children's Book of the Year category.
The shortlisted nominees were announced on 15 March 2017 at the London Book Fair. The awards comprised four divisions: Books of the Year (the Nibbies), Great People, Bringing Books to Readers and Publishing Success. For the first Nibbies since 2014, the ceremony was expanded, Crime and Thriller titles regained their own category (previously called the Crime Thriller of the Year and changed to Thriller and Crime Novel of the Year in 2011), while non-fiction was split into Narrative and Lifestyle.[67] The Newcomer of the Year / New Writer of the Year award was renamed Debut Book of the Year and The Popular Fiction award which had changed to Popular Fiction Book of the Year in 2010 was renamed simply as Fiction Book of the Year in this year.
Prior to 2010 the Best was a unique winner. Starting in 2010, the Best was chosen by the public via open internet vote from among the winning books in the other categories. The category was resurrected in 2018.
Previously called Popular Fiction Award. Name changed to Popular Fiction Book of the Year in 2010 and subsequently to Fiction Book of the Year in 2017.
Previously called the Crime Thriller of the Year. Name changed to Thriller & Crime Novel of the Year in 2011 and subsequently to Crime & Thriller Book of the Year in 2017.
^"About the awards". nationalbookawards.co.uk. Archived from the original on 19 November 2012. Retrieved 5 November 2012. Before 2010 the awards were known as the British Book Awards. Specsavers became the sponsor of the 2012 awards, the new deal follows the previous 5-year partnership with Galaxy.
^"Home page". National Book Awards. Archived from the original on 4 November 2016. There will be no event during 2015 and no date yet set for title submissions.
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