Book biography of the year award

British literary 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. 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. There were no National Book Awards after 2014; 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.

In 2018, a Specsavers National Book Awards ceremony was held on 20 November but was unrelated to the Nibbies.

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).

The awards are known as the Nibbies because of the golden nib-shaped trophy given to winners.

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. Once again the in-person ceremony was livestreamed.Katherine Rundell was named Autho

Rundell said: "Any prize that puts books - books which can shake your day into a different shape, crowbar the world open for you - to the forefront of people's attention is something to treasure."

Lucas told BBC News the response to his book had been "overwhelming" and he was "really proud" of what it had achieved.

"I'm indebted to my publisher, Farshore, because when I suddenly said, "Oh and by the way, this is going to be a musical novel," they absolutely ran with it," he added.

In the children's non-fiction category Sathnam Sanghera is nominated for Stolen History: The Truth About the British Empire And How It Shaped Us.

In the crime & thriller category, Richard Osman has been nominated, for The Last Devil to Die, the fourth novel in his million-copy bestselling The Thursday Murder Club series.

Murder-mystery stories also feature in the non-fiction lifestyle and Illustrated category, with GT Karber shortlisted for his puzzle book and UK Christmas number-one, Murdle.

The winners of the 12 categories of the British Book Award, known as the Nibbies because of the golden nib-shaped trophy, will be announced on 13 May.