Penguin Random House UK takes home five prizes at the British Book Awards

Penguin Random House UK celebrated success in five categories at the 2019 British Book Awards, one of the UK publishing industry’s leading awards; held in association with The Bookseller magazine.

Penguin General took home the coveted Publisher of the Year award, with judges commending its “stellar year”, which was spearheaded by the publication of Michelle Obama’s Becoming. The book – which also scooped the Non-Fiction Narrative Book of the Year and Audiobook of the Year at this year’s British Book Awards – was the biggest memoir of 2018, also taking Christmas No. 1. 

Beyond Becoming, Penguin General celebrated a fantastic 2018, with an incredible 19 different books on the Sunday Times bestseller lists: from Dolly Alderton’s Everything I Know About Love, to Ben MacIntyre’s The Spy and the Traitor; Arnhem by Antony Beevor and The 4 Pillar Plan by Dr Rangan Chatterjee. The publishing house also won the Costa Book of the Year award in January 2019 with Bart vas Es’ memoir The Cut Out Girl. 

Penguin Random House UK also triumphed in two further categories. Transworld author Lee Child, whose Past Tense was one of the most hotly-anticipated thrillers of 2018, was named Author of the Year, whilst Vintage title The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock was awarded Publicity Campaign of the Year. Described as a “total masterclass” by the judges, the campaign – run by publicists Louise Court and Lucie Cuthberton-Twiggs – helped to make the book the top-selling literary fiction debut of 2018.

For the full list of 2019 winners of the British Book Awards, visit the website here.