Richard Osman shortlisted at Indie Book Awards
Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club has been shortlisted for the Fiction category at this year’s Indie Book Awards, the annual prize curated by booksellers as part of Independent Bookshop Week.
The awards honour the paperback books of the year across four categories – Fiction, Non-Fiction, Children’s Fiction and Picture Book – as voted for by independent booksellers, and are part of the campaign celebrating indie bookshops, organised by the Booksellers Association (BA).
Osman has been nominated for his debut crime novel, The Thursday Murder Club (Viking), while 2020 Booker Prize-longlisted author Reid is up for Such A Fun Age (Bloomsbury), a novel that follows Emira, a young Black woman accused of kidnapping the child she babysits. Writer and poet Zephaniah has been shortlisted for his novel, Windrush Child (Scholastic), which centres on Leonard, a child of the Windrush generation who grows up experiencing racism as he tries to build a new life in London.
A judging panel of independent booksellers and authors will decide on the four winners, to be announced at 10 a.m. on 25th June, the penultimate day of Independent Bookshop Week. The winners will be announced on Scala Radio, the official media partner of the Indie Book Awards. During Independent Bookshop Week, which runs from 19th to 26th June, Bookshop.org and Blackwell’s will be hosting virtual events featuring some of the shortlisted authors.
Emma Bradshaw, head of campaigns at the BA, said: "The Indie Book Awards celebrate the best titles of the year, as recommended by the expertise of independent booksellers. This year’s shortlist features an eclectic mix of books, from Sunday Times bestsellers, to Booker-nominated titles, to books that have kept us company throughout lockdown. As bookshops gradually reopen in the UK and Ireland, I can’t wait to go to my local indie and get my hands on this year’s shortlist – and I hope all book lovers will do the same!"
The judging panel for the Adult categories consists of booksellers including Tina Gaisford-Waller from Winstone’s Hunting Raven Books, Saber Khan of Toppings in Bath, Sam Fisher from Burley Fisher Books, Alice Carr of Blackwell’s in Edinburgh and Hachette author Will Dean.