La Belle Sauvage: The Book of Dust Volume One, Philip Pullman's first installment in a new series, was crowned Waterstones Book of the Year, the Bookseller reported. The shortlist was drawn from bookseller nominations, with the winner selected by a panel headed by Waterstones' managing director James Daunt, who said books like La Belle Sauvage "excited" retailers: "Booksellers influence readers, and are guided in turn by the enthusiasms of their customers. It is the happy warp and weft of our profession, and very few books indeed excite this process quite like La Belle Sauvage. This is a winner that is going to bring a lot of pleasure to an ever-widening audience and we could not be more pleased to play our part in its success."
To mark Pullman's win, Waterstones is selling a special edition of La Belle Sauvage featuring an exclusive cloth jacket, enhanced by gold foil and embossed finishes; a gold ribbon marker; gold endpapers with London and Oxford skylines; and one of six Ex Libris daemon bookplates, featuring key daemons from the text.
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Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls by Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo has been named Blackwell's 2017 Book of the Year, the Bookseller reported. The U.K. bookstore chain's employees were asked to nominate and then vote for their winning title from a shortlist of four. Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls was the children's book category winner.
Katharine Fry, the trade buying manager at Blackwell's who organizes the Book of the Year prize, observed that Good Night Stories was her "personal favorite," adding: "We plan to promote the book in all our shops and use it as a centerpiece for similar inspirational books and events including Blackwell's vote 100 campaign in the New Year (celebrating the act that gave women the vote for the first time). We are all very excited."
Favilli and Cavallo commented: "Booksellers, along with our backers have helped us make Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls a success. Just as we took pleasure in spending a day at our favorite bookshop as young girls, we are delighted to hear from young girls and boys who discovered Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls at their local bookshop and will carry its message of determination and rebellion wherever they go."