The Bookseller · award year
British Book Awards 2025
The 2025 British Book Awards went to Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hot Mess by Jeff Kinney (Children's Fiction Book of the Year), Jonty Gentoo: The Adventures of a Penguin by Julia Donaldson (Children's Illustrated Book of the Year) and Wilding: How to Bring Wildlife Back by Isabella Tree (Children's Non-Fiction Book of the Year), with winners in 8 more categories. 61 books made the shortlist across 11 categories.
Winners
Children's Fiction Book of the Year
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hot Messsource (opens in a new tab)
Children's Illustrated Book of the Year
- Jonty Gentoo: The Adventures of a Penguinsource (opens in a new tab)
Children's Non-Fiction Book of the Year
- Wilding: How to Bring Wildlife Backsource (opens in a new tab)
Crime & Thriller Book of the Year
Debut Book of the Year
Discover Book of the Year
Fiction Book of the Year
Non-Fiction: Lifestyle & Illustrated Book of the Year
- What I Ate in One Yearsource (opens in a new tab)
Non-Fiction: Narrative Book of the Year
Overall Book of the Year
Pageturner Book of the Year
- Faeboundsource (opens in a new tab)
Shortlist
Children's Fiction Book of the Year
- A Tempest of Teasource (opens in a new tab)
- I Am Rebelsource (opens in a new tab)
- Recklesssource (opens in a new tab)
- The Majorly Awkward BFF Dramas of Lottie Brookssource (opens in a new tab)
- The Reappearance of Rachel Pricesource (opens in a new tab)
Children's Illustrated Book of the Year
- Bunny vs Monkey: The Great Big Glitchsource (opens in a new tab)
- Dog Man: The Scarlet Sheddersource (opens in a new tab)
- Letters from the North Polesource (opens in a new tab)
- Pablo and Splashsource (opens in a new tab)
- There's a Poonami in My Housesource (opens in a new tab)
Children's Non-Fiction Book of the Year
- Hamzas Wild Worldsource (opens in a new tab)
- Little People, Big Dreams: Taylor Swiftsource (opens in a new tab)
- Science is Litsource (opens in a new tab)
- The History of Informationsource (opens in a new tab)
- The World to Comesource (opens in a new tab)
Crime & Thriller Book of the Year
- All the Colours of the Darksource (opens in a new tab)
- Guiltysource (opens in a new tab)
- Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?source (opens in a new tab)
- The Wrong Sistersource (opens in a new tab)
- We Solve Murderssource (opens in a new tab)
Debut Book of the Year
- Glorious Exploitssource (opens in a new tab)
- Green Dotsource (opens in a new tab)
- The List of Suspicious Thingssource (opens in a new tab)
- The Ministry of Timesource (opens in a new tab)
- When the Moon Hatchedsource (opens in a new tab)
Discover Book of the Year
- An African History of Africasource (opens in a new tab)
- Fragile Animalssource (opens in a new tab)
- Out on a Limbsource (opens in a new tab)
- These Letters End in Tearssource (opens in a new tab)
- Tiananmen Squaresource (opens in a new tab)
Fiction Book of the Year
Non-Fiction: Lifestyle & Illustrated Book of the Year
- A Better Second Halfsource (opens in a new tab)
- Drawn to the Gardensource (opens in a new tab)
- Greekishsource (opens in a new tab)
- So Goodsource (opens in a new tab)
- Spud Mans Spudtacular Baked Potato Cookbooksource (opens in a new tab)
Non-Fiction: Narrative Book of the Year
- All That Matterssource (opens in a new tab)
- I Havent Been Entirely Honest with Yousource (opens in a new tab)
- Raising Haresource (opens in a new tab)
- Unleashedsource (opens in a new tab)
- Wantsource (opens in a new tab)
Pageturner Book of the Year
About the British Book Awards
Book of the Year categories only, shortlists plus winners. Audiobook categories and awards to people (Author, Illustrator, International Author, deciBel Writer, Outstanding Achievement) are skipped. Run as the Galaxy British Book Awards (2006-2009), Galaxy National Book Awards (2010-2011), Specsavers National Book Awards (2012-2014) and, under The Bookseller, the British Book Awards or Nibbies (2017-). No awards were held in 2015 or 2016. Year is the ceremony year: spring for 2006-2009 and 2017-2025, November-December for 2010-2014. Category names follow each era's own. For 2010-2014 Book of the Year was a public vote among that year's category winners, which are recorded as its shortlist; 2008-2009 Book of the Year and 2018-2025 Overall Book of the Year record the winner only, chosen from the category winners. Sources: The Bookseller and the official awards sites (archived on web.archive.org) where available; otherwise press coverage (The Guardian, The Independent, Publishing Perspectives, BBC, the awards' PR agency Taylor Herring) and, for 2013 Popular Fiction and Crime shortlists, a crime-fiction blog. 2017-2025 shortlists were transcribed from Wikipedia and each title checked against the cited page. 2013 Biography, Children's, Food & Drink and Popular Non-Fiction record winners only; the shortlists could not be recovered.
Organization: The Bookseller. Years are award years, which can differ from publication years. Official site (opens in a new tab)
Shares the most books with
- Goodreads Choice Awards 140 shared books
- Dublin Literary Award 100 shared books
- Women's Prize for Fiction 44 shared books
- Booker Prize 31 shared books
- Costa Book Awards 31 shared books