British Book Awards winners and shortlisted books

The British Book Awards, also known as the Nibbies, are run by the trade magazine The Bookseller. Their Book of the Year awards reward the author, illustrator and publishing team behind a book, and the shortlists and winners are chosen for a combination of writing, sales and publishing approach.

This page lists 29 books that won or were shortlisted: 14 winners, including Murdle (Book of the Year 2024) and Queenie (Book of the Year 2020), and 15 shortlisted books, such as Raising Hare and The Last Bear.

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Who this page is for

Readers looking for books that won or were shortlisted in a Book of the Year category at the British Book Awards, from adult fiction and non-fiction to children's books. Each entry gives the year and category, what the book is about and who it may suit. Ages for children's books come from the publisher or our catalogue.

British Book Awards winners

  • 2026, Children's Non-fiction & Illustrated Book of the Year: Oh Dear, Look What I Got! by Michael Rosen, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury. A rhyming picture book in which every trip to the shop brings home a surprise animal; for reading aloud with children aged 3 to 5, who can join in with the refrain.
  • 2025, Debut Book of the Year: Butter by Asako Yuzuki, translated by Polly Barton. A Tokyo journalist visits a gourmet cook convicted of murdering lonely businessmen, and their meetings turn into cooking lessons; a Japanese novel inspired by a true story, for readers who like crime fiction built around food.
  • 2025, Crime & Thriller Book of the Year: Hunted by Abir Mukherjee. After his daughter is suspected of plotting a terror attack in the US, a father teams up with a Florida mother whose son is linked to the girl, and they race the FBI to find their children; a 512-page contemporary thriller.
  • 2024, Book of the Year (overall); Non-fiction: Lifestyle and Illustrated Book of the Year: Murdle by G. T. Karber. A collection of 100 illustrated murder-mystery logic puzzles in which you work out who did it, with which weapon and where; for puzzle fans and readers of classic detective stories.
  • 2024, Fiction Book of the Year: Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang. When her rival dies in an accident, failed writer June Hayward takes the unpublished manuscript and publishes it as her own, until someone threatens to expose her; a novel about ambition, stolen identity and the book world.
  • 2024, Non-fiction: Narrative Book of the Year: Politics On the Edge by Rory Stewart. Rory Stewart's account of a decade in politics, from outsider to Cabinet minister and candidate for prime minister, before he was sacked from the Conservative Party; for readers interested in how British government works from the inside.
  • 2023, Debut Book of the Year: Trespasses by Louise Kennedy. Cushla, a teacher, meets Michael, a married man from Belfast, in her family's pub, and the encounter changes both their lives as car bombs and killings fill the daily news; literary fiction about love and political violence.
  • 2023, Children's Fiction Book of the Year: Tyger by SF Said, illustrated by Dave McKean. Adam finds a mythical tyger in a London rubbish dump and, with his friend Zadie, tries to save it in an alternate world where the British Empire still exists; an illustrated fantasy for readers aged 9 to 11.
  • 2022, Children's Fiction Book of the Year: When the Sky Falls by Phil Earle. In 1941 a boy sent to live in a bombed city befriends the silverback gorilla at a rundown zoo; a Second World War novel inspired by a true story, for readers aged 9 to 11.
  • 2021, Fiction Book of the Year: Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell. A novel set in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1596 about a family facing the death of a famous playwright's son, a boy whose name was given to one of his father's plays; for readers of historical fiction. This paperback is the film tie-in edition.
  • 2020, Book of the Year (overall); Debut Book of the Year: Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams. A 25-year-old Black woman in south London, working at a national newspaper, looks for comfort in the wrong places after a messy break-up; a darkly comic novel about race, family and relationships.
  • 2018, Children's Book of the Year: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. Sixteen-year-old Starr is the only witness when a police officer shoots her unarmed best friend, and must decide what to say; a YA novel inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, for teenage readers.
  • 2017, Non-fiction: Narrative Book of the Year: East West Street by Philippe Sands. An international lawyer traces his family's history in Lviv and the origins of the legal ideas of genocide and crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trial; part memoir, part historical investigation.
  • 2004, History Book of the Year: Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore. A 752-page history of Stalin and the circle around him during his decades in power, based on new research; for readers who want a detailed political biography.

Shortlisted books

2026 shortlist

  • Ginseng Roots by Craig Thompson (Graphic Novel Book of the Year). A graphic memoir about the author's childhood summers weeding and harvesting ginseng on Wisconsin farms and a later journey to north-east China; for readers of graphic memoir and cultural history.

2025 shortlist

  • Want by Gillian Anderson (Non-Fiction: Narrative Book of the Year). Gillian Anderson collects and introduces anonymous sexual fantasies sent in by women around the world; for adult readers.
  • Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton (Non-Fiction: Narrative Book of the Year). The author's account of finding a newborn hare during lockdown and raising it at home while preparing it for a return to the wild; for readers of nature writing and true animal stories.
  • Pablo and Splash by Sheena Dempsey (Children's Illustrated Book of the Year). Two penguins take a holiday that sends them back in time to the age of the dinosaurs; a full-colour graphic novel for young readers who like Bunny vs Monkey or Dog Man.
  • The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey (Debut Book of the Year). In Yorkshire in 1979, two girls make a list of suspicious people on their street, hoping to solve a string of murders so that one of them does not have to move away; a coming-of-age story with a mystery at its centre.

2024 shortlist

  • Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth (Discover Book of the Year). In an Irish village in the early 1990s, a teenage girl falls in love with her school friend and hides the relationship from her conservative community; a coming-of-age novel about first love between two young women.

2023 shortlist

  • Home Is Not A Place by Johny Pitts and Roger Robinson (Discover Book of the Year). A photographer and a poet drive clockwise around the British coast and record Black British life and history in photographs, poems and essays.
  • As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh (Discover Book of the Year). Salama works at a hospital during the Syrian revolution and must decide whether to stay or leave; a love story set in wartime, for readers aged 12 to 15.
  • The Heartstopper Yearbook by Alice Oseman (Children's Illustrated Book of the Year). A full-colour companion to the Heartstopper graphic novels, with new illustrations, a mini-comic, character profiles and notes on the author's creative process; for readers aged 12 to 15 who know the books or the Netflix series.

2022 shortlist

  • The Last Bear by Hannah Gold, illustrated by Levi Pinfold (Children's Fiction Book of the Year). On a remote Arctic island, April meets a starving polar bear and sets out to get him home; an illustrated adventure the publisher recommends for readers aged 8 and over.
  • A Different Sort of Normal by Abigail Balfe (Children's Non-fiction Book of the Year). The author's illustrated account of growing up autistic without a diagnosis, with facts about neurodiversity, sensory overload, friendships and school; for readers aged 9 to 11, and for adults.
  • Heartstopper Volume 4 by Alice Oseman (Children's Illustrated Book of the Year). Charlie and Nick are now boyfriends, while Nick thinks about coming out to his dad and worries that Charlie may have an eating disorder; the publisher notes discussion of mental health, eating disorders and self-harm. For readers aged 12 to 15.

2021 shortlist

  • Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake (Non-fiction: Narrative Book of the Year). Merlin Sheldrake's account of fungi and the part they play in nature's processes, in our bodies and in our minds; for general readers interested in science and the natural world.
  • Dragon Mountain by Katie Tsang and Kevin Tsang (Children's Fiction Book of the Year). At a summer camp in China, 12-year-old Billy and his friends find four warrior dragons trapped inside a mountain; the first book in the Dragon Realm series, for readers aged 9 and up.

2020 shortlist

  • Impostor by LJ Ross (Crime & Thriller Book of the Year). Forensic psychologist Alexander Gregory is drawn into the hunt for a killer in rural County Mayo; a fast-paced thriller for readers of crime series. The shortlist spells the title Imposter.

How this list was made

Every book here states in its publisher description that it won or was shortlisted, and each claim was checked against the published British Book Awards winners and shortlists. The awards were called the British Book Awards from 1990 to 2009 and again from 2017; Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar won in 2004.

Selected by Fox & Fable from books in stock. Last updated 30 September 2026.