So who else has been shortlisted? The Fiction Book of the Year battle is between Bernardine Evaristo (Girl, Woman, Other), Margaret Atwood (The Testaments), Philip Pullman (The Secret Commonwealth) and Jojo Moyes (The Giver of Stars), alongside Heather Morris with Cilka’s Journey, a sequel to the Sunday Times bestselling The Tattooist of Auschwitz.

Lady Anne Glenconner’s account of accompanying Princess Margaret on state occasions and foreign tours for more than thirty years, Lady in Waiting, will compete with Elton John’s tell-all autobiography Me, and Adam Kay’s festive follow-up to his million-copy selling junior doctor diaries, Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas for the Non-Fiction: Narrative Book of the Year trophy.

In Non-Fiction: Lifestyle, Instagram cleaning guru Sophie Hinchcliffe’s Hinch Yourself Happy sits alongside the cartoonist and illustrator Charlie Mackesy’s New York Times bestseller The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse, while champion of healthy school meals Jamie Oliver faces newcomers Shamil and Kavi Thakrar and Naved Nasir with the first cookbook from their beloved Bombay café chain, Dishoom.

The superstar of children’s books David Walliams lines up with his The Beast of Buckingham Palace (illustrated by Tony Ross) next to the Foyles Children’s Book of the Year 2019 winner The Good Thieves by Katherine Rundell, as well as recent World Book Day authors and founder of the Making Herstory charity, Onjali Q. Raúf, in Children’s Fiction. In Children’s Non-Fiction & Illustrated, The Smeds and the Smoos by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler is up against You Got This by writer, podcaster, author and mental health champion Bryony Gordon.

In Début Book of the Year, first novels from opposite sides of the pond, both longlisted for this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction, sit together – Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams and Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner.

For Audiobook of the Year, Margaret Atwood is shortlisted twice, for both The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments, sitting alongside documentary-maker Louis Theroux and his self-deprecating autobiography, Gotta Get Theroux This and heavyweights Bill Bryson and Philip Pullman.

British Book Awards shortlist: check out the competition ahead of Monday’s ceremony