Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell has been chosen as the Waterstones Book of the Year. In making the announcement, the bookseller said, "Indisputably Maggie O'Farrell's masterpiece, Hamnet recreates both a vibrant Elizabethan world and the short, tragic life of Shakespeare's only son in peerless, evocative prose. Passionately championed by our booksellers since its publication in March, this uniquely powerful meditation on love, family and loss demands to be read by all. Our special Waterstones edition is sumptuously designed with gold foil on cloth binding, stunning endpapers and an exclusive essay."
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| Waterstones' special edition | |
Bea Carvalho, Waterstones fiction buyer, added: "We have been hugely impressed by the abundance of brilliant books published this year and, for our booksellers, Hamnet is the clear standout title: a work of immense style and emotional heft which will surely go on to be a future classic."
Last year, the Waterstones Book of the Year was The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy. Several days after the pick was announced, Barnes & Noble, in its first holiday season headed by James Daunt, also Waterstones' managing director, announced that the inaugural B&N Book of the Year was The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse.
Hamnet won the Women's Prize for Fiction in September and is one of the New York Times's 10 Best Books of the Year. It is published in the U.S. by Knopf.