Shortlists and Books of the Year
The Herald Angels are warming up their voices and we’re ending the year on a high with James Hanning’s THE BOOKSELLER OF HAY chosen by Howard Jacobson for the New Statesman’s 2025 ‘Book of the Year’ and the news that Adam Hart’s debut OPERATION PIMENTO: My Great-Grandfather’s Great Escape has been shortlisted for the Hatchards First Biography Prize.
As we head for the holidays, for anyone looking for recommendations beyond books, Bloomberg launched The Mishal Husain Show in October, a new weekend global podcast series accessible across all the usual platforms, created to ‘make sense of the world through essential conversations’. The episodes thus far have been illuminating and are definitely worth catching up on ahead of next year’s line-up. If you’re not already listening to the much-loved Movers and Shakers talking about life with Parkinson’s disease, featuring Rory Cellan-Jones, that is certainly worth plugging into. And this Autumn Ben Chu presented a three part BBC Radio 4 series The Tax Conundrum for those still chewing over the recent budget drama.
Next year is the designated ‘National Year of Reading’ which is a campaign run by the Department of Education together with the National Literacy Trust. The ‘Go All In’ mission is to reignite ‘reading for pleasure’ after reports have shown a steep decline in reading-enjoyment pretty much across the board – in children, young people and adults. It will be invigorating to have a nationwide focus on the joy of books, the power of stories and the impact they can have on our mental and physical wellbeing. It’s a nice counterbalance to the challenges facing the publishing industry what with international trade changes, the grab of content by the AI companies building their LLMs and the constant hijacking of our attention by tech. In this maelstrom, it’s undoubtedly become harder to ensure that books find their readers but there are always places to find inspiration - new indie bookshops springing up, glowing online reviews from appreciative readers, packed venues at literary festivals…
As we hurtle towards 2026, we look forward to seeing new manuscripts, ideas for the next bestsellers and of course the fruits of our authors’ labours as their titles hit the shelves and get into readers’ hands.