Coralie Bickford-Smith has won the Waterstones Book of the Year Award with her illustrated book The Fox and the Star, beating last month’s WM cover star Matt Haig, with Reasons to Stay Alive. Also shortlisted were: Harper Lee, Go Set a Watchman; Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend; Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train; James Rebanks, The Shepherd’s Life; Mary Beard, SPQR; Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life. The winners of the 2015 Portico Prize, which is awarded for books that celebrate the North of England in literature, are Benjamin Myers for Beastings (fiction) and Richard Benson for The Valley (non-fiction).
The Game of Our Lives by David Goldblatt is the winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award.