The Booker Prize, formerly known as the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a literary prize awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. The winner of the Booker Prize receives international publicity which usually leads to a sales boost. When the prize was created, only novels written by Commonwealth, Irish, and South African citizens were eligible to receive the prize; in 2014 it was widened to any English-language novel—a change that proved controversial.
The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, formerly the Samuel Johnson Prize, is an annual British book prize for the best non-fiction writing in the English language. It was founded in 1999 following the demise of the NCR Book Award. With its motto "All the best stories are true", the prize covers current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the arts. The competition is open to authors of any nationality whose work is published in the UK in English. The longlist, shortlist and winner is chosen by a panel of independent judges, which changes every year. Formerly named after English author and lexicographer Samuel Johnson, the award was renamed in 2015 after Baillie Gifford, an investment management firm and the primary sponsor. Since 2016, the annual dinner and awards ceremony has been sponsored by the Blavatnik Family Foundation.
The Royal Society Science Books Prize is an annual £25,000 prize awarded by the Royal Society to celebrate outstanding popular science books from around the world. It is open to authors of science books written for a non-specialist audience, and since it was established in 1988 has championed writers such as Stephen Hawking, Jared Diamond, Stephen Jay Gould and Bill Bryson. In 2015 The Guardian described the prize as "the most prestigious science book prize in Britain".
Marcus Edward Trescothick is an English former cricketer who played first-class cricket for Somerset County Cricket Club, and represented England in 76 Test matches and 123 One Day Internationals. He was Somerset captain from 2010-16 and temporary England captain for several Tests and ODIs. Since retirement he has commentated and coached at both county and international level.
The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are literary prizes awarded for literature written in the English language. They, along with the Hawthornden Prize, are Britain's oldest literary awards. Based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, United Kingdom, the prizes were founded in 1919 by Janet Coats Black in memory of her late husband, James Tait Black, a partner in the publishing house of A & C Black Ltd. Prizes are awarded in three categories: Fiction, Biography and Drama.
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.
Andrew O'Hagan is a Scottish novelist and non-fiction author. Three of his novels have been nominated for the Booker Prize and he has won several awards, including the Los Angeles Times Book Award.
The County Ground, known for sponsorship reasons as Cooper Associates County Ground, and nicknamed Ciderabad, is a cricket ground in Taunton, Somerset. It is the home of Somerset County Cricket Club, who have played there since 1882. The ground, which is located between Priory Bridge Road and St James Street, has a capacity of 8,500. The ground was originally built as part of a sports centre by Taunton Athletic Club in 1881, and became the home of the previously nomadic Somerset County Cricket Club soon after. Having leased the ground for ten years, the club bought the ground in 1896, under the guidance of club secretary Henry Murray-Anderdon. The ground ends are the River End to the north and the Somerset Pavilion End to the south.
The Forward Prizes for Poetry are major British awards for poetry, presented annually at a public ceremony in London. They were founded in 1992 by William Sieghart with the aim of celebrating excellence in poetry and increasing its audience. The prizes do this by identifying and honouring talent: collections published in the UK and Ireland over the course of the previous year are eligible, as are single poems nominated by journal editors or prize organisers. Each year, works shortlisted for the prizes – plus those highly commended by the judges – are collected in the Forward Book of Poetry.
The William Hill Sports Book of the Year is an annual British sports literary award sponsored by bookmaker William Hill. The award is dedicated to rewarding excellence in sports writing. It was first awarded in 1989, and was devised by Graham Sharpe of William Hill, and John Gaustad, founder of the Sports Pages bookshop. As of 2020, the prize for winning the award is £30,000 and a leather-bound copy of their book. Each of the shortlisted authors receives £3,000.
John Agard FRSL is an Afro-Guyanese playwright, poet and children's writer, now living in Britain. In 2012, he was selected for the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. He was awarded BookTrust's Lifetime Achievement Award in November 2021.
Canongate Books is an independent publishing firm based in Edinburgh, Scotland.
The Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize is an annual literary award given by the Royal Society of Literature. The £10,000 award is for a work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry that evokes the "spirit of a place", and is written by someone who is a citizen of or who has been resident in the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland.
The Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year, originally known as the Diagram Group Prize for the Oddest Title and commonly known as the Diagram Prize, is a humorous literary award that is given annually to a book with an unusual title. The prize is named after the Diagram Group, an information and graphics company based in London, and The Bookseller, a British trade magazine for the publishing industry. Originally organised to provide entertainment during the 1978 Frankfurt Book Fair, the prize has since been awarded every year by The Bookseller and is now organised by the magazine's diarist Horace Bent. The winner was initially decided by a panel of judges, but since 2000 the winner has been decided by a public vote on The Bookseller's website.
Duncan Hamilton is a British author and newspaper journalist and three-time winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award.
Bernardine Anne Mobolaji Evaristo, is a British author and academic. Her novel Girl, Woman, Other, jointly won the Booker Prize in 2019 alongside Margaret Atwood's The Testaments, making her the first woman with Black heritage to win the Booker.
Oneworld Publications is a British independent publishing firm founded in 1986 by Novin Doostdar and Juliet Mabey originally to publish accessible non-fiction by experts and academics for the general market. Based in London, it later added a literary fiction list and both a children's list and an upmarket crime list, and now publishes across a wide range of subjects, including history, politics, current affairs, popular science, religion, philosophy, and psychology, as well as literary fiction, crime fiction and suspense, and children's titles. A large proportion of Oneworld fiction across all its lists is translated.
Jonathan Mark Wilson is a British sports journalist and author who writes for a number of publications, including The Guardian and Sports Illustrated. He is a columnist for World Soccer and Unibet and founder and editor of The Blizzard. He also appears on The Guardian's football podcast, Football Weekly".
The William Hill Irish Sports Book of the Year was an annual Irish literary award sponsored by bookmakers William Hill. Established in 2006, it was related to the International William Hill Sports Book of the Year. The award sought to honour sports books produced in Ireland. The award lost its sponsorship after 2011 and has been discontinued.
