Latest news

The longlist for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize 2019 has been announced, and features Henry Porter's thrilling novel, Firefly. The complete longlist is as follows: J. D. Fennell SLEEPER: THE RED STORM (The Dome Press) Adrian Goldsworthy THE ENCIRCLING SEA (Head of Zeus) Paul Howarth ONLY KILLERS AND THIEVES (Pushkin Press) Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar THE MAP OF SALT AND STARS (Weidenfeld & Nicolson/Orion) David Leadbeater THE RELIC HUNTERS (Thomas & Mercer) Henry Porter FIREFLY (Quercus) A. G. Riddle WINTER WORLD (Head of Zeus) Craig Russell THE DEVIL ASPECT (Constable/Little, Brown) Michael Rutger THE ANOMALY (Bonnier Books UK) Jock Serong PRESERVATION (Text Publishing) Taylor Stevens LIARS? PARADOX (Kensington Publishing) Holly Watt TO THE LIONS (Raven Books) The Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize is an international book prize that supports and celebrates the best adventure writing today. First awarded in 2016, the Prize presents awards in three categories: Best Published Novel, Best Unpublished Manuscript and Author of Tomorrow (age 21 and under). The Prize is open to writers of any nationality, writing in English. From the longlist, a number of books will now be selected for shortlist and, under guidance from an expert judging panel, the ?15,000 first prize for Best Published Novel will be awarded at a ceremony in on 12th September 2019, at London?s Stationers? Hall.

The 2019 longlist for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award sees the return of previous shortlisted author Elly Griffiths, with her latest Ruth Galloway novel, The Dark Angel. The award is run in partnership with T&R Theakston Ltd, WHSmith, and The Mail on Sunday. The longlist of 18 titles were selected by an Academy of crime writing authors, agents, editors, reviewers and members of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival Programming Committee. Titles will be promoted in a dedicated online campaign with WHSmith and a nationwide library promotion. The shortlist of six titles will be announced on 19 May. The winner will be announced at an award ceremony hosted by broadcaster Mark Lawson on 18 July on the opening night of the 17th Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival at the Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate. They?ll receive a ?3,000 cash prize, as well as a handmade, engraved beer barrel provided by Theakston Old Peculier. The night will also feature the Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award, with past recipients over the years including PD James, Ruth Rendell, Reginald Hill and Colin Dexter.

Crudo by Olivia Laing is one of four novels competing for the ?10,000 James Tait Black award for fiction, now in its 100th year. It is joined on the shortlist by Sight by Jessie Greengrass, Murmur by Will Eaves, and Heads Of The Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires. Fiction judge Dr Alex Lawrie, of the University of Edinburgh, said: ?These four books are stylish, witty, and experimental. I?m thrilled that in this centenary year our shortlist reflects the very best that fiction can offer.? In the biography category, In Extremis: The Life Of War Correspondent Marie Colvin by Lindsey Hilsum is competing for the ?10,000 prize with Natives: Race And Class In The Ruins Of Empire by Akala, The Life Of Stuff: A Memoir About The Mess We Leave Behind by Susannah Walker, and The Catalogue Of Shipwrecked Books: Young Columbus And The Quest For A Universal Library by Edward Wilson-Lee. The annual prizes have been presented since 1919, after Janet Tait Black, part of the threadmaking family J & P Coats, made a provision in her will for the awards in memory of her husband James. The winners of both prizes will be announced at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August.

Humble Pi by Matt Parker reached the number one slot in the Sunday Times bestseller list last week, beating the long-running bestselling autobiography by Michelle Obama. Janklow & Nesbit received confirmation from Nielsen BookData that this was the first time a book about maths has ever reached number one on the Sunday Times list, with its nearest rival being fellow Janklow & Nesbit client Alex Bellos, whose book Alex?s Adventures in Numberland reached number two in 2010. Humble Pi is still on the Sunday Times list this week, ranked at number eight, and after Matt Parker appeared on BBC Breakfast this morning (19th March) it is still featuring in the top ten bestsellers in the Amazon chart.

This week Rutger Bregman has appeared on the eminent Daily Show with Trevor Noah after causing a storm over his viral ?taxes, taxes, taxes? speech at Davos in January. His attack on the wealthy elite for refusing to discuss issues around tax avoidance was swiftly followed by a tense exchange with Fox News host Tucker Carlson around Carlson?s own financial backing as a journalist, recorded and exposed by Bregman last month. Bregman?s book Utopia for Realists has experienced increased sales since the speech, with both videos reaching millions of views and being shared by major media sites. Bregman himself has made wide ranging media appearances including high-profile interviews in the Guardian and the New York Times, discussing the utopian principles detailed in the book and how to work towards greater economic equality.

Janklow & Nesbit has had an incredible start to the year, with Lewis Dartnell?s ORIGINS spending two weeks in the Sunday Times hardback non-fiction bestseller list, and Elly Griffiths?s THE STONE CIRCLE (eleventh in the Dr Ruth Galloway Mystery series) hitting the Sunday Times bestseller list at #7 in its first week of publication, and sitting at #11 the following week. Rangan Chatterjee has sold over 53,000 copies of THE FOUR PILLAR PLAN and THE STRESS SOLUTION since the beginning of the year, and spent a month in the Sunday Times top five manuals chart. THE STRESS SOLUTION has seen wide coverage across major national papers since January, and the total sales of THE FOUR PILLAR PLAN since publication have now exceeded 100,000. Jasper Fforde?s EARLY RISER has also had a fantastic reception in the US in February, debuting at #10 in the New York Times bestseller list, and mirroring the success of its UK debut last year when it reached #5 on the Sunday Times bestseller list after its first week of sales.

Sophie Cameron has been nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Medal 2019 for her novel, Out of the Blue. The prize is awarded annually by CILIP for an outstanding book written in English for children and young people. This year, 137 books are in the running for the CILIP Carnegie Medal 2019. Books have been put forward by a record number of nominators which, alongside CILIP members, includes several external bodies ? BookTrust, CLPE, Commonword, IBBY, Inclusive Minds, National Literacy Trust and RNIB ? invited to nominate as part of CILIP?s diversity and inclusion action plan for the Awards. Each nominated book is read by every member of the judging panel ? 14 children's and youth librarians representing all regions of CILIP's Youth Libraries Group ? who volunteer their time as judges. From these nominations the judging panel will decide the long and shortlists and finally, the 2019 Medal winners, based on the official Medals criteria. The long and shortlists identify a range of outstanding books for children and young people, recognising excellent literature and illustration from new and established authors and illustrators. The longlist announcement will be made on 18 February 2019, the shortlist announcement on 18 March 2019, and the final prize winner will be announced on the 17th June 2019.

Laura Freeman has been shortlisted for the The Sunday Times / Peters Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award , in association with the University of Warwick, for her beautiful memoir The Reading Cure. The judges have chosen two novels and two works of non-fiction to be in the running for the prize, which rewards the best work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry by a British or Irish author aged between 18 and 35. All four shortlisted books are debuts, and they are: - The Reading Cure: How Books Restored My Appetite by Laura Freeman (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) - The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar (Harvill Secker) - Elmet by Fiona Mozley (John Murray) - Kings of the Yukon: An Alaskan River Journey by Adam Weymouth (Particular) This year, the award-winning novelist Kamila Shamsie and the novelist and non-fiction writer Susan Hill are judging the prize, alongside Andrew Holgate, Literary Editor of The Sunday Times. The four writers on the shortlist are in the running to become the 20th winner of the award, and it was the Irish writer Sally Rooney who was awarded for her debut novel Conversations with Friends last year. The 2018 winner will be revealed with a ceremony at the London Library on 6 December.

Blackwell?s has revealed the shortlist for its Book of the Year 2018, featuring Kiran Millwood Hargrave's The Way Past Winter as the winner of the children's category. The titles across four categories (fiction, non-fiction, children?s and debut), have been voted for by Blackwell?s booksellers. The fiction award went to Daisy Johnson's Man Booker-nominated Everything Under, non-fiction going to the Sunday Times bestseller Brit(ish) by Afua Hirsch, and the debut prize going to Lisa Halliday for Asymmetry. As a result of an internal poll, the books will now be promoted in shops and online, with Blackwell's booksellers choosing the overall Book of the Year from the four category winners this month, to be announced on 4th December.

Lily Allen's striking autobiography, My Thoughts Exactly, has been shortlisted in the Autobiography & Biography category for the Specsavers National Book Awards 2018. The National Book Awards are designed to celebrate the best and most popular books of the year. They will be held in 2018 on Tuesday 20 November and presented by Zoe Ball. ? There are eleven main categories as well as a popular vote for the best book from this year's Zoe Ball Book Club. An outstanding achievement award will also be given on the night to an author or illustrator who has truly made their mark in books. ?The eleven main categories are: Popular Fiction, Crime & Thriller, Autobiography & Biography, Popular Non-Fiction, Food & Drink, Children's, Young Adult, Audiobook, New Writer, International Author, UK Author. ?The awards are judged by The Academy, a handpicked group of the most senior and influential people in the book trade including publishers, agents, booksellers, journalists and influencers. They vote for the shortlists from a longlist of 15-25 books per category and then again to choose the winning books. ?After the awards are announced the public are invited to vote for their Book of the Year from all the winning books. This winner will be announced just after Christmas. Previous winners have included David Nichols' One Day and EL James' Fifty Shades of Grey, Caitlin Moran's How to be a Woman, Jessie Burton's The Miniaturist and Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

Hannah Fry's Hello World has made the shortlist for the ?30,000 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, which celebrates the best in non-fiction writing. The six titles on this year?s shortlist are: - Hello World: How to be Human in The Age of The Machine, Hannah Fry (Doubleday) - The Spy and the Traitor, Ben Macintyre (Viking) - Amateur: A True Story About What Makes a Man, Thomas Page McBee (Canongate Books) - Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China?s Last Golden Age, Stephen R Platt (Atlantic) - Chernobyl: History of A Tragedy, Serhii Plokhy (Allen Lane) - She Has Her Mother?s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions and Potential of Heredity, Carl Zimmer (Picador) Fiammetta Rocco, chair of the judges, said: ?To judge the 2018 Baillie Gifford prize is to feel once again how miraculous books are. We have read about history and war and science and spying. And along the way we?ve been thrilled, jolted, consoled, informed and illuminated. It?s been a remarkable journey.? The winner of the 2018 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction will be announced on Wednesday 14 November at an awards dinner at RIBA supported by the Blavatnik Family Foundation.

Sarah Jayne Blakemore has been awarded the 2018 Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize for Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain, in a ceremony hosted by Professor Brian Cox. Founded in 1988, the Prize ? described as the ?Booker Prize of Science Writing? by BBC Radio 4 ? celebrates outstanding popular science books from around the world and is open to authors writing for a non-specialist audience. Inventing Ourselves was chosen from a six-strong shortlist, including Professor Daniel M Davis (The Beautiful Cure), Professor Mark Miodownik (Liquid), Simon Winchester (Exactly), and two fellow Janklow & Nesbit clients Lucy Cooke (The Unexpected Truth About Animals) and Dr Hannah Fry (Hello World). Professor Blakemore received a cheque for ?25,000 at the ceremony and the five shortlisted authors were each awarded ?2,500. Chair of this year?s panel Professor Dame Frances Ashcroft, Professor of Physiology at the University of Oxford and author, said about the book: ?Any of the shortlisted titles would have been a worthy winner. However, Inventing Ourselves stood out because it addresses an important but somewhat neglected area that affects every one of us. It?s a completely captivating read on the teenage brain written by a leading expert in the field. Blakemore explains the science behind teenage behaviour in a lucid and engaging way, deconstructs the myths that surround it, offers new insight into how we should treat teenagers, and reflects on how our new knowledge might usefully influence policy decisions. She illustrates all this with engaging anecdotes from her own teenage years, so that the book is both an entertaining memoir and a scientific study of how the adolescent brain develops ? of how we become ourselves. This is truly a book that everyone should read.?

Olivia Laing's Crudo has been shortlisted for the eminent Goldsmiths Prize, announced on the 26th September at Goldsmiths University in south London, accompanied by the New Statesman/Goldsmiths Prize Lecture, given by Elif Shafak. The panel of judges was comprised of academic Adam Mars-Jones, authors Deborah Levy and Elif Shafak, as well as literary critic and New Statesman columnist Nicholas Lezard. Crudo has been described by judges as a ?novelistic fusion cuisine?, and is joined on the shortlist by Robin Robertson's The Long Take, Rachel Cusk's Kudos, Guy Gunaratne's In Our Mad and Furious City, Gabriel Josipovici's The Cemetery in Barnes and Murmur by Will Eaves. The Goldsmiths Prize was established in 2013 to celebrate the qualities of creative daring associated with the College and to reward fiction that breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form. The annual prize of ?10,000 is awarded to a book that is deemed genuinely novel and which embodies the spirit of invention that characterizes the genre at its best. The winner will be announced at ceremony at Goldsmiths on 14th November, and will appear at Cambridge Literary Festival in conversation with culture editor of the New Statesman Tom Gatti and Elif Shafak on 25th November.

Nell Stevens, author of Mrs Gaskell and Me, has been shortlisted for this year's BBC National Short Story Award for her story, 'The Minutes', detailing the pretentious world of hapless art student activists as they protest the demolition of a South London tower block with art. Nell is joined on the shortlist by former prize-winner Sarah Hall with 'Sudden Traveller', composer and debut novelist Kerry Andrew for 'To Belong To', Commonwealth Short Story Prize winner and debut novelist Ingrid Persaud for 'The Sweet Sop' and Kiare Ladner for 'Van Rensburg?s Card'. The shortlist of five stories was announced on Friday 14 September 2018, during BBC Radio 4?s Front Row. Selected from nearly 800 entries (an increase of 28% on 2017), this year?s shortlist is the fifth all-female shortlist in the BBC National Short Story Award?s history. Now celebrating its thirteenth year, the Award is one of the most prestigious for a single short story, with the winning author receiving ?15,000, and the four further shortlisted authors ?600 each. The stories are also broadcast on air and the writers interviewed on Front Row, as part of BBC Radio 4?s short story season in September. Editor of the TLS, Stig Abell, is joined on this year?s judging panel by short story writer, K J Orr; novelist and one of last year?s shortlisted writers, Benjamin Markovits; Di Speirs, Books Editor at BBC Radio; and poet, Sarah Howe.