PAMELA STEPHENSON'S revealing biography of her husband, Billy Connolly, beat some of Britain's best-known authors last night to become publishing's book of the year.

Billy, chronicling Connolly's excessive behaviour at the height of his fame and his sexual abuse as a child by his father, won the honour at the British Book Awards ahead of Ian McEwan and Beryl Bainbridge and acclaimed works by Dave Pelzer and Jonathan Franzen.

The book has now sold almost 400,000 hardback copies, proving that celebrities can be publishing triumphs in the face of commercial flops by the likes of Anthea Turner.

Stephenson, the former TV comedian turned therapist, and Connolly attended the awards ceremony at the Grosvenor House hotel in London last night. So did Bainbridge, Ian Rankin, Raymond Briggs and a legion of other shortlisted authors.

The British Book Awards, also known as the Nibbies, are the publishing world's own honours and tend to reflect popular public taste rather than the views of the critics.