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Waterstones has named Lucy Steeds’ debut novel, and winner of the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize, The Artist as its Book of the Year for 2025. The Café at the Edge of the Woods by Mikey Please was also named its Children’s Book of the Year and Padella by Tim Siadatan its Gift of the Year.
A shortlist is created by Waterstones booksellers, where they nominate an outstanding book they particularly enjoyed recommending to readers over the year, before the winners are then decided from that list.
Bea Carvalho, Waterstones’ head of books, said: “The announcement of Waterstones Book of the Year is the most exciting point in our bookselling calendar, as we reflect on another year of excellent publishing across genres. This year, our booksellers have chosen a stunning trio of books, which celebrate creativity and craftsmanship while showcasing the power of recommendation to create bestsellers.”
Both Steeds and Please’s books are debuts and their wins were described by Carvalho as “heralding the arrival of two astonishing new talents destined to be read and celebrated for a long time to come”. Padella is the first cookery book to be named a winner since Polpo won the first Book of the Year gong in 2012.
The Artist is set during the 1920s and focuses on an enigmatic painter, the young British journalist set on penning a piece about him and the artist’s seemingly unworldly niece. As the young man sets out to write his piece on the painter, tensions between the three come to a dramatic conclusion.
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