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Mason wins fiction book of the year at 2022 British Book Awards

Sydney-based Aotearoa New Zealand writer Meg Mason has won the 2022 British Book Award for fiction book of the year for her second novel Sorrow and Bliss (Fourth Estate).

The judges said Mason’s ‘astonishing’ novel is ‘a book you read and then want to press into everyone else’s hands’, while Weidenfeld & Nicholson’s ‘phenomenal’ publicity campaign created impressive word-of-mouth buzz for an Australian author with no existing profile in the UK.

In the trade section of the awards, known as the ‘Nibbies’, Simon & Schuster was named publisher of the year, following a record year of sales driven by celebrity memoirs by Dave Grohl and Bob Mortimer and TikTok stars Colleen Hoover, Adam Silvera and Taylor Jenkins Reid, while Pushkin Press won independent publisher of the year.

In retailing, Bookshop.org was named book retailer of the year and The Bookery in Crediton was named both independent bookshop of the year and children’s bookseller of the year.

Other book award winners included:

Book of the year

  • You Are a Champion (Marcus Rashford & Carl Anka, Macmillan Children’s)

Fiction book of the year 

  • Sorrow and Bliss (Meg Mason, Fourth Estate)

Fiction: crime and thriller book of the year

  • The Dark Remains (William McIlvanney & Ian Rankin, Canongate) 

Debut book of the year

  • Open Water (Caleb Azumah Nelson, Viking) 

Nonfiction lifestyle book of the year 

  • The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present (Paul McCartney, Allen Lane)

Nonfiction narrative book of the year

  • Empireland (Sathnam Sanghera, Viking)

Fiction audiobook of the year

  • Wizards of Once #4: Never and Forever (Cressida Cowell, narrated by David Tennant, Hodder)

Nonfiction audiobook of the year

  • Windswept & Interesting (Billy Connolly, Two Roads)

Children’s fiction book of the year

  • When the Sky Falls (Phil Earle, Andersen Press)

Children’s illustrated book of the year

  • Hey You! (Dapo Adeola, illus by Dapo Adeola et al, Puffin).

For a full list of winners, click here.

 

Category: Local news