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Amis, Pratchett and Stephen Fry lauded at Galaxy

11.11.10 | Graeme Neill

Terry Pratchett and Martin Amis both picked up lifetime achievement awards at the inaugural Galaxy National Book Awards. In Wednesday night’s surprise result, Stephen Fry’s The Fry Chronicles (Michael Joseph) beat former British prime minister Tony Blair’s memoir A Journey (Hutchinson) in the Tesco Biography of the Year.

Random House picked up three awards, five if you include Pratchett and Amis (both published by RH), though will be disappointed to have missed on an award for Blair. HarperCollins picked up two, while Hachette, Penguin, Pan Mac also each picked up a gong. The show was ably compered by David Baddiel, with presenters including Chris Moyles, Claudia Winkleman and Paul O'Grady. Pratchett and the shortlisted Jilly Cooper received the warmest reception of the evening, while there was one protest heckle when the Blair book was announced.

Both Amis and Pratchett were lauded in recognition of their “unrivalled” contribution to the UK publishing industry. Amis said: "I’m delighted. And I take this as a boost for the so-called comic novel. I say so-called, because in fact nearly all novels are comic novels." Pratchett said: "I’m amazed, you find something that you like doing and do well and keep on doing it and suddenly they give you an award, when all I was really doing was having a lot of fun."

At the ceremony held at BBC Studios in west London, Andrew Marr beat Antonia Fraser and Bill Bryson to clinch the More4 Non-Fiction Book of the Year award for The Making of Modern Britain (Pan Macmillan).

A hotly contested Popular Fiction Book of the Year category saw David Nicholls’ One Day (Hodder) beat the likes of Jilly Cooper, Dorothy Koomson and Philippa Gregory.

Man Booker winner Hilary Mantel added another award to her mantlepiece, clinching the Waterstone’s UK Author of the Year prize.

Celebrity chefs Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson and Nigel Slater were all beaten by Yotam Ottolenghi (Ebury) in the Tesco Food and Drink Book of the Year category.

The creators of the Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, added to their success by beating authors including David Walliams to the W H Smith Children’s Book of the Year prize for Zog (Scholastic). Edmund de Waal’s family memoir, The Hare With Amber Eyes (Random House), won the National Book Tokens New Writer of the Year award.

Jonathan Franzen beat authors including Stieg Larrson and the Booker longlisted Christos Tsiolkas to win the Galaxy International Author of the Year prize for his long awaited novel follow-up to The Corrections, Freedom (Fourth Estate).

W H Smith will price promote the winners on front of store display units today (11th November). Waterstone's had a mixed offer on the shortlisted books at its front of store. Titles were either in the 3 for 2, price promoted or sold at r.r.p. Plenty and Andrew Marr were sold at r.r.p, David Nicholls' One Day was in the 3 for 2 offer while Jonathan Franzen's Freedom was sold with £4 off.

The public is being asked to voted online for the Galaxy Book of the Year, comprising the winners of the eight categories. The final result will be announced on 13th December, The awards will be broadcast on More4 at 7.30pm on Saturday 13th November.

Five in-depth interviews will follow featuring the award winners and nominees in the biography category. Tony Blair will be interviewed by journalist John Sergeant, Sir Michael Parkinson will chat with Dame Joan Bakewell, and Sandi Toksvig will discuss Paul O’Grady’s memoir with the author.

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