Twenty years have passed since Arundhati Roy’s masterful, Booker-winning debut  The God of Small Things found its way into the light: for many, it was perhaps the perfect novel; searching, wise, universal, a kaleidoscope of unforgettable incident that defined what literary fiction could do. For far too long, this wonderful book remained Roy’s only novel, her writing subsequently focusing on her real-world commitment as a courageous and committed political activist.

Now, almost unbelievably, that twenty-year wait is over and as Roy's novel again takes its place in the Man Booker Prize 2017 longlist. Simon Prosser, Hamish Hamilton's Publishing Director, describes the extraordinary moment he received the manuscript for Arundhati Roy’s new novel,  The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.

Since 1999, the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction has reigned as Britain’s pre-eminent award for non-fiction writing. From Anthony Beevor’s Stalingrad onward, each year has brought us a winner that has moved on to become a Waterstones staple – Anna Funder’s Stasiland, for example, her engrossing, insider account of pre-unification Germany, or the groundbreaking melange of genres that was Helen Macdonald’s bestselling H is for Hawk. Now running under its new name, The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, this £30,000 award continues to be the literary benchmark for factual writing published in the UK.

Under the Chair of Stephanie Flanders, the five-strong judging panel have chosen a new successor to that fine list with Philippe Sands’ East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, which tonight conquered a superb shortlist to claim The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2016.

Beating a strong field - including two-time Booker winner Hilary Mantel - debut author K.J. Orr bags the coveted BBC National Short Story Award with BookTrust for 2016 with her short story Disappearances.

Described as a study of the area where medicine 'necessarily remains an art as well as a science', O’Sullivan’s debut, It's All in Your Head, wins this year's Wellcome Prize.

The winner of this year’s Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, My Brother is a Superhero by David Solomons, was announced at special celebration event at our flagship bookshop in Piccadilly.

The eighth Harry Potter story, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Parts I and II, will be released this Summer. Not only that, it is a play.

The Tale of Kitty-In-Boots is a never-before published Beatrix Potter story, discovered 100 years after it was written, that will be released later this year with illustrations by Quentin Blake. Read a short extract of the story.

Our literary round up of the last seven days.

This year's category winners include Kate Atkinson's A God In Ruins and Frances Hardinge‘s The Lie Tree

Loop of Jade, a debut collection of poetry, has been announced this year's winner.

To celebrate the release of Raymond Briggs' Fungus The Bogeyman as a television series, Waterstones, in association with Sky 1, are offering some amazing prizes.

We are delighted to announce that we have passed the halfway mark in our Buy Books For Syria Campaign and have now raised over £500,000 for Oxfam's Syria Crisis Appeal.