The Nero Book Awards – underwritten and delivered by Caffè Nero in partnership with Brunel University of London and The Booksellers Association – has announced its category shortlists for 2024, recognising the best books from the last 12 months across the following categories: Fiction, Non-Fiction, Debut Fiction and Children’s Fiction.
The Nero Book Awards are the only set of multi-category awards open exclusively to writers based in the UK and Ireland and have established themselves as ‘one of Britain and Ireland’s top literary prizes’ (The Observer), propelling the inaugural Nero Book Awards Gold Prize winner 2023, The Bee Sting by Paul Murray (Hamish Hamilton), to a wider audience earlier this year. The book’s paperback edition jumped from #3,724 to #129 in the Amazon book charts the morning after the announcement. Simon Prosser, Publishing Director at Hamish Hamilton, said: “Winning the Gold Prize was a great extra boost for The Bee Sting as we prepared to launch our paperback edition, and we were delighted when the book went straight into the Top 5 of the Sunday Times paperback fiction bestseller chart.”
The category judges have selected 16 books as the best of the year in the four categories out of hundreds of books submitted. Each category (Fiction, Non-Fiction, Debut Fiction and Children’s) winner, chosen from the shortlist, will be announced on 14 January 2025 and of those, one book will be selected as the overall winner – The Nero Gold Prize, Book of the Year – by a final panel of judges and announced at a ceremony on 5 March 2025. Ten out of 16 shortlisted books are by women and more than half of the books shortlisted are by debut authors. There is also an even split of books published by major publishing houses and independent presses represented on the shortlist this year.
The Nero Book Awards are run as not-for-profit by the independent, family-owned coffee house group Caffè Nero. Their mission is to point readers of all ages and interests in the direction of outstanding books and writers. The awards are part of Caffè Nero’s long-standing programme to sponsor and encourage the arts and culture in its coffee houses and communities where it operates.
This year’s panel of judges, which includes award-winning authors, respected journalists, reputable booksellers and well-known industry professionals, reviewed hundreds of books before deciding on the 16 titles which make up the 2024 category shortlists. The full list of judges for this year’s edition can be found here.
Fiction Award shortlist (listed alphabetically by author surname)
- Levitation For Beginners by Suzannah Dunn (Abacus)
- The Hypocrite by Jo Hamya (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
- Lost in the Garden by Adam S Leslie (Dead Ink Books)
- Heart, Be at Peace by Donal Ryan (Doubleday)
Non-Fiction Award shortlist
- Pixel Flesh: How Toxic Beauty Culture Harms Women by Ellen Atlanta (Headline Non-Fiction)
- An African History of Africa: From the Dawn of Humanity to Independence by Zeinab Badawi (WH Allen)
- Maurice and Maralyn: An Extraordinary True Story of Shipwreck, Survival and Love by Sophie Elmhirst (Chatto & Windus)
- All That Glitters: A Story of Friendship, Fraud and Fine Art by Orlando Whitfield (Profile Books)
Debut Fiction Award shortlist
- Wild Houses by Colin Barrett (Jonathan Cape)
- Monumenta by Lara Haworth (Canongate)
- Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon (Fig Tree)
- No Small Thing by Orlaine McDonald (Serpent’s Tail)
Children's Fiction Award shortlist
- Bird Boy by Catherine Bruton (Nosy Crow)
- How to Survive a Horror Movie by Scarlet Dunmore (Little Tiger)
- The Twelve by Liz Hyder (Pushkin Children’s Books). Illustrated by Tom De Freston
- Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody by Patrick Ness (Walker Books). Illustrated by Tim Miller
Gerry Ford, Founder and CEO of Caffè Nero, commented: “There is extraordinary writing talent in the UK and Ireland and our judges have worked tirelessly to find 16 outstanding books based on the quality of their writing and their readability. We received an overwhelming number of entries this year, so I know it was no small feat to choose just 16 for the shortlists. Through The Nero Book Awards, we continue our long-running support of the arts and to strengthen our community-based roots. Caffè Nero is a premium coffee brand and these Awards similarly represent excellence in literature. We are grateful for the support we received in our inaugural year, and we look forward to continuing to work with publishers and authors to bring these exceptional books to as many people as possible, both in our coffee houses and the wider community. Our goal is to inspire writers to write, readers to read and everyone to live a richer life through ideas and storytelling.”
For full details of the shortlists, follow Nero Book Awards on X and Instagram. For additional information, visit: nerobookawards.com
Reported by:
Press Office,
Media Relations
+44 (0)1895 266867
press-office@brunel.ac.uk