Stephen Fry beat Tony Blair and Lord Sugar when his memoirs landed the biography of the year title at the Galaxy National Book Awards. He was honoured for his second volume of memoirs, The Fry Chronicles, at a ceremony attended by stars and figures from the publishing world. Literary veterans Terry Pratchett and Martin Amis were given awards for outstanding achievement in recognition of their contribution to the publishing industry. Comedian David Walliams's book Mr Stink lost out in the award for best children's title to Zog, a tale about an accident-prone dragon created by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, the celebrated creators of The Gruffalo. Pratchett - the Discworld novelist who has been battling Alzheimer's disease - said of his win: "I'm amazed. You find something that you like doing and do well and keep on doing it and suddenly they give you an award, when all I was really doing was having a lot of fun." Broadcaster and political commentator Andrew Marr landed the non-fiction prize for The Making Of Modern Britain, beating fellow nominees including Lady Antonia Fraser and Bill Bryson. Popular fiction book of the year went to David Nicholls' One Day, beating the likes of Jilly Cooper, while Hilary Mantel picked up the UK author of the year prize, seeing off competition from Maggie O'Farrell and Kate Atkinson. Yotam Ottolenghi beat Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson and Nigel Slater to food and drink book prize for Plenty. American author Jonathan Franzen - who became a worldwide sensation for his book The Corrections - collected the International author of the year trophy for Freedom.
