Update 29/11/12: Polpo announced as winner of Waterstones Book of the Year.

Today, we are excited to announce the shortlist for our inaugural Waterstones Book of the Year.

With so many books to choose from during a year of fantastic publishing, our list of six is made up of four non-fiction and two historical novels.

Hilary Mantel’s Man Booker Prize-winning and critically celebrated Bring Up The Bodies needs little in the way of introduction, being the second in her trilogy featuring Thomas Cromwell. French writer Lauren Binet is nominated for his universally acclaimed debut in translation HHhH, praised by the likes of Martin Amis and Bret Easton Ellis, which tells the story of Heydrich’s assassination, and the author’s attempts to grapple with the very form of the novel.

The Old Ways, a meditation on walking, writing and the British landscape by award-winning nature and travel writer Robert Macfarlane sits alongside Simon Garfield‘s witty and irrepressible exploration of our obsession with cartography On The Map, which was our October Book of the Month. Finally, Artemis Cooper’s biography of war hero Patrick Leigh Fermor joins the beautiful and delicious cookbook Polpo: A Venetian Cookbook (of sorts) to complete the shortlist.

Waterstones MD, James Daunt said that “In an extremely strong year of publishing, we have an exceptional shortlist for our Book of the Year. They have such singular attributes, it will be fascinating to see which emerges the winner.”

The winning title will be chosen by a Waterstones panel headed by James Daunt, and will be announced on the evening of Thursday 29th November at the Waterstones King’s Road bookshop in Chelsea.

The shortlist in full:

• HHhH by Laurent Binet
• Patrick Leigh Fermor by Artemis Cooper
• On The Map by Simon Garfield
• The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane
• Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel
• Polpo: A Venetian Cookbook (Of Sorts) by Russell Norman

Who do you think should win? What is your personal book of the year? Tell us in the comments below.