Book Awards & My Choices
Every time I click on Google right now I see another announcement about books that have won significant prizes in literature. This must mean it’s that time of the year - the moment prominent book awards start to announce their annual winners.
All Nobel Prizes in Literature - NobelPrize.org
I have added some links so that you can browse awards and their winners (and nominees, which I’ve noticed often seem to do very well once they have appeared in the nominee lists). The one we all probably know is the Pulitzer Prize, but there are many awards out there. I’m interested this year because of the amount of reading and research I maintain daily into upcoming books and authors; this is a time consuming hobby and I was overjoyed when I realised I had called some of the winners earlier in the year as the books were released. I want to be clear; these are not books I have necessarily read or can review yet; they are books I have looked into for my own TBR list.
The Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction was definitely one I tagged, and is on my (6,500 book long) TBR, because I simply could not stop seeing it everywhere I looked. The winning slot was awarded to "James" by Percival Everett.
This book attempts to erase the racism inherent in Huckleberry Finn, not by changing the classic text in any way, but instead by giving Huckleberry Finn’s companion James his own voice and story. According to Book Browse (linked below), the other winning texts were all unknown to me, but for reference the rest of the winners were "Native Nations: A Millennium in North America" by Kathleen DuVal and "Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War" by Edda L. Fields-Black, respectively.
Non-fiction Pulitzer winners for 2025 include "Every Living Thing" by Jason Roberts (Biography), "Feeding Ghosts" by Tessa Hulls (Memoir or Autobiography), and "To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause" by Benjamin Nathans (General Nonfiction), again all unknown to me before the awards.
The Women’s Prize for fiction is one that I should be well in tune with, as I read and love many feminist texts around my horror preferences, and I have indeed called the lead contender on the fiction shortlist, which is of course “The Safekeep” by Yael van der Wouden. I randomly picked this one from lists and reviews, because it looks like an amazing piece of writing. My other selections were on the Women’s Prize fiction longlist, but were knocked off during shortlisting.
The contenders I had my eye on (and were in my TBR) were “Dream Count” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and “The Ministry of Time” by Kaliane Bradley and “Nesting” by Roisin O’Donnell and “Birding” by Rose Ruane and “Tell Me Everything” by Elizabeth Strout, and finally “The Dream Hotel” by Laila Lalami. Of the seven books I chose to add to my To Read list, I think only The Safekeep and Tell Me Everything reached the shortlist.
2025 Book Awards and Book Prize Winners | Bookclubs
I did notice that, without realising it, I called (and own) both of last years winners though. The 2024 winners were “Brotherless Night” by V. V. Ganeshananthan for fiction and “Doppelganger” by Naomi Klein for non-fiction. Again, both are on my ridiculously long TBR list! Looking through all of the annual awards, I own many of the contenders and winners from the 2023 and 2024 listings; some of these are amazing books and well worth a read.
I then completely failed on the International Booker Prize for 2025, which is a useful reminder not to think myself too clever or anything, I mean it’s the International Booker Prize, surely the book stood out, which means I just completely missed it? This spot was taken by “Heart Lamp” by Banu Mushtaq, which I have to admit, I have never even heard of, though I am pleased an anthology of short stories has been rated so highly. I had two books from the longlist, which were “On a Woman’s Madness” by Astrid Roemer and “On the Calculation of Volume I” by Solvej Balle. Both appear to be stunning pieces of writing, one traumatic and the other slow and steady.
I did spot last year’s International Booker winner again though in the form of “Orbital” by Samantha Harvey. Orbital has had mixed reviews, and is not the easiest read, but I have to say I thought it was absolutely beautiful and completely unlike anything I have ever read before. Ignoring potential political implications of the mix of Russian and non-Russian members of the space station mission described in the book, and taken at core value just for the prose and relaxing effect on the reader, this is truly an amazing piece of text.
We’re then on to the British Book Awards. For these, I OWN EVERY BOOK ON THE SHORTLIST!! Yep, I am back to thinking of myself as a clever little smarty pants. “Butter” by Asako Yuzuki is one of the best things I have ever spent time engrossed in. Everyone should read more Japanese fiction in my opinion, it has completely different pacing to work from other countries. “Patriot: A Memoir” by Alexei Navalny is also something I am particularly looking forward to reading.
Book of the Year Winners 2025 | The British Book Awards
The only other award I can see has been drawn this year is the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, but sorry I have never even heard of the winner, “Code Noir” by Canisia Lubrin. This is one I might look up out of interest, as I expect it is Science Fiction, and it feels good for speculative fiction to be winning prizes.
The rest of this year’s awards are still in the pipeline, so I’ll just have to wait and see how in tune I was for those!
