A stellar line-up competes for the Specsavers National Book Awards Hosted by Lorraine Kelly

by Lucy Moore | 13 November 2012

National Book Awards

THE nation’s favourite writers go head-to-head as the shortlist for this year’s Specsavers National Book Awards is announced today.

Clare Balding, Miranda Hart, Michael Palin, EL James, David Walliams, Caitlin Moran, JK Rowling and Zadie Smith are among the authors nominated for awards at the annual star-studded ceremony. Hosted this year by Lorraine Kelly, the awards will be held at the glamorous Mandarin Oriental Hotel on Tuesday 4^th December, with highlights to be shown on Lorraine (ITV1) on Wednesday 5^th December.

Competition is hot across all ten categories, not least in the award for Autobiography and Biography of the Year, which pits famous faces Clare Balding, David Mitchell, David Walliams and Pete Townshend against members of the literary elite, Salmon Rushdie and Artemis Cooper.

Can Mary Berry prove winning is a piece of cake following the nomination of her Complete Cookbook for Food and Drink Book of the Year? She’ll have to beat Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Lorraine Pascale and Gok Wan in the ultimate great British bake off!

The Non-Fiction category will see Micheal Palin’s Brazil pitted against Miranda Hart’s Is It Just Me? and Caitlin Moran’s Moranthology, while the Children’s Book of the Year sees David Walliams and Simon Mayo among the authors competing for the title.

The awards also celebrate narrated works in the Audiobook of the Year, which sees Dan Stevens reading Ian Fleming and Caroline Quentin reading Sue Townsend up against the twice-nominated Miranda Hart, reading her own work.

Specsavers Popular Fiction Book of the Year is set to be a closely fought category, with EL James’s Fifty Shades of Grey up against JoJo Moyes, Victoria Hislop and Kate Mosse.

After the event, readers can vote for their favourite of the 2012 award winners to crown one title the Specsavers National Book of the Year, which will be announced on Tuesday 18^th December. Previous winners have included One Day by David Nicholls and Caitlin Moran’s How To Be A Woman.

Amanda Ross, managing director of Cactus TV, comments: ‘These Awards are special because they recognise and reward the authors people are actually reading and buying. Following our successful Crime Thriller Awards partnership with Specsavers, we’re delighted to welcome them as the headline sponsors for this glittering event. We had an amazing party at last year’s Awards and this year promises to be even better.’

Dame Mary Perkins, Specsavers founder, said: ‘We’re thrilled to be part of the National Book Awards for the first time this year. I’m a real bookworm and with such an exciting and diverse selection of writers shortlisted, I can’t wait to get stuck into the titles myself.’

Details of the awards and previous winners are available at the official website.

Full shortlist for the 2012 Specsavers National Book Awards as follows:

Autobiography/Biography of the Year:

My Animals and Other Family by Clare Balding (Viking Adult)
Patrick Leigh Fermor by Artemis Cooper (John Murray)
Back Story by David Mitchell (HarperCollins)
Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie (Jonathan Cape)
Who I Am by Pete Townshend (HarperCollins)
Camp David by David Walliams (Michael Joseph)

Popular Fiction Book of the Year sponsored by Specsavers:

1356 by Bernard Cornwell (HarperCollins)
The Thread by Victoria Hislop (Headline Review)
The Rose Petal Beach by Dorothy Koomson (Quercus Books)
Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James (Arrow)
Citadel by Kate Mosse (Orion)
Me Before You by JoJo Moyes (Michael Joseph)

Crime Book of the Year available on iBookstore:

A Wanted Man by Lee Child (Bantam Press)
Kind of Cruel by Sophie Hannah (Hodder and Stoughton)
A Question of Identity by Susan Hill (Chatto and Windus)
The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz (Orion Fiction)
Perfect People by Peter James (Pan)
Gods and Beasts by Denise Mina (Orion)

Food & Drink Book of the Year sponsored by WHSmith:

Mary Berry's Complete Cookbook by Mary Berry (DK)
The Great British Bake Off: How to Turn Everyday Bakes into Showstoppers by Linda Collister (BBC Books)
Hugh's Three Good Things by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (Bloomsbury)
The Hairy Dieters by Si King & Dave Myers (Weidenfeld & Nicholson)
Lorraine Pascale’s Fast, Fresh and Easy Food by Lorraine Pascale (HarperCollins)
Gok Cooks Chinese by Gok Wan (Michael Joseph)

International Author of the Year sponsored by Google Play™:

HHhH by Laurent Binet (Harvill Secker)
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt (Granta)
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain (Canongate Books)
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey (Headline Review)
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (Allen Lane)
The Dinner by Herman Koch (Atlantic)

Non-fiction Book of the Year sponsored by Magic 105.4 FM:

A Street Cat Named Bob by James Bowen (Hodder and Stoughton)
Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre (4th Estate)
Is It Just Me? by Miranda Hart (Hodder and Stoughton)
Moranthology by Caitlin Moran (EburyPress)
Brazil by Michael Palin (Weidenfeld & Nicholson)
The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson (Picador)

UK Author of the Year sponsored by Waterstones:

Capital by John Lanchester (Faber and Faber)
Swimming Home by Deborah Levy (Faber and Faber)
Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel (4th Estate)
The Casual Vacancy by J. K. Rowling (Little, Brown)
NW by Zadie Smith (Hamish Hamilton)
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal by Jeanette Winterson (Vintage)

Children's Book of the Year sponsored by National Book Tokens:

The Wolf Princess by Cathryn Constable (Chicken House)
The Pirates Next Door by Jonny Duddle (Templar Publishing)
Pirates Love Underpants by Claire Freedman and Ben Cort (Simon and Schuster)
Itch by Simon Mayo (Doubleday Children's)
Tom Gates: Genius Ideas (mostly) by Liz Pichon (Scholastic Children's Books)
Ratburger by David Walliams (HarperCollins Children's)

Audiobook of the year sponsored by Audible.co.uk:

Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel, read by Simon Slater (Whole Story Audiobooks)
Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan, read by Juliet Stevenson (Random House Audiobooks)
Casino Royale by Ian Fleming, read by Dan Stevens (AudioGO)
Is It Just Me? by Miranda Hart, read by Miranda Hart (Hodder and Stoughton)
The Killing by David Hewson, read by Christian Rodska (Macmillan Digital Audio)
The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year by Sue Townsend, read by Caroline Quentin (Whole Story Audiobooks)