Book Awards

Every year, the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award—the world's longest-running sports writing prize—highlights the very best new books in the genre. We asked Alyson Rudd, chair of the judges, to introduce us to this year's winner—The Escape, by cyclist Pippa York and reporter David Walsh—and the six runners-up.  

We always look forward to the shortlists for the National Book Critics Awards, on the basis that literary critics are probably the best read people out there. Here, we asked the garlanded critic Mary Ann Gwinn to talk us through the five biographies highlighted in 2025.

It's a nonfiction book prize that values "style, rigour, argument, meatiness, readability, freshness, oddity and individuality," says Minoo Dinshaw, author of Friends in Youth and one of this year's judges. He introduces the six brilliant books that made the shortlist of this year's Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize, from the history of post-World War II Italy to the disputes caused by the discovery of dinosaur fossils.  

Comedy offers escapism and a way of processing our emotions during stressful times, says the comedian Pippa Evans—who this year served as a judge for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction. Here she talks us through the books shortlisted for the title of the funniest book of 2020, and explains how she found herself researching pig deliveries.

The boundaries between biography, history and news are very porous, says Elizabeth Taylor—chair of the judging panel for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography. Here, she introduces us to the five-strong shortlist of books, all of which, she notes, made headlines or "contributed to a substantial revision of history."

Whether you fancy a quality sports autobiography or an artfully-illustrated graphic narrative, we've got suggestions for you. Here, we've put together a concise round-up of the award-winning memoirs of 2024 to help you find highly-acclaimed new books you might otherwise have missed.

Every year, judges for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize ferret out the very best in newly published comic fiction. This year, the seven-novel shortlist ranges from steampunk fantasy to romantic comedy—and they are, says judge Justin Albert, the funniest books of 2024.

Every year, the judges of the Royal Society Science Book Prize put together a shortlist of the smartest, sharpest, funniest science books of the previous twelve months. We asked the chair of the 2024 panel—the leading evolutionary biomechanics researcher Professor John Hutchinson—to talk us through their picks of the best new popular science books.

Every year, members of the World Science Fiction Society nominate writers for the Hugo Award, then vote for the winner. All speculative fiction is eligible – fantasy as well as sci-fi – and the shortlist is one of the most prestigious for both genres. Here, Sylvia Bishop introduces us to the nominees for the title of the best speculative novel of 2024 – and the page-turning champion. See all our best science fiction books, fantasy fiction, and best novels of 2024 recommendations.

Each summer, the judges for the Women's Prize for Fiction highlight the best new fiction books by female writers published over the previous twelve months. We asked Monica Ali, the acclaimed novelist and chair of this year's jury, to talk us through the six novels that made the 2024 shortlist. See all our best novels of 2024 recommendations