BOOK AWARDS
Whitbread Awards 2004
http://www.whitbreadbookawards.co.uk/index.htm
Established by Whitbread PLC — one of the UK's leading leisure companies — in 1971, the Whitbread Book Awards 'celebrate the most enjoyable British writing of the last year'.
This year's awards were marked by a record number of entries — 468 in total — including the highest ever entry in the Children's Book Awards (111) and the shortlists include three former Whitbread winners.
Film actor Hugh Grant will be a member of the final judging panel which selects the overall winner of the 2004 Whitbread Book of the Year. The panel will be chaired by award-winning ITN newscaster, Sir Trevor McDonald OBE and will include journalist and broadcaster Mariella Frostrup; the Rt Hon Michael Portillo MP, Conservative Member of Parliament for Kensington and Chelsea; and writer and former Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Roy Hattersley, who also sat on this year’s Whitbread Biography Award judging panel.
The five category short lists are given below. The overall winner of the £25,000 Whitbread Book of the Year will be announced on 25th January 2005 at an awards ceremony to be held in London.
Book of the Year Winner — announced January 25th 2005
Small Island by Andrea Levy (Review) 0755307496
Andrea Levy has won the 2004 Whitbread Book of the Year Award for Small Island. The announcement was made this evening (Tuesday 25 January) at an awards ceremony held at The Brewery in Central London.
In one of the most open contests since the Book of the Year award was introduced in 1985, Small Island beat biography My Heart is My Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots by John Guy, children’s book Not The End of the World by Geraldine McCaughrean, first-time novelist Susan Fletcher for Eve Green and poet Michael Symmons Roberts for Corpus for the ultimate prize.
Following the judging, Sir Trevor McDonald, chair of the final judges, said: “All the books are winners and the decision was very difficult, but Small Island was written with enormous charm and was a clear choice for Whitbread Book of the Year.”
Category Winners Announced — announced January 2005
| Title | Author | Publisher | ISBN |
| Novel | |||
| Small Island | Andrea Levy | Review | 0755307496 |
| First Novel | |||
| Eve Green | Susan Fletcher | Fourth Estate | 0007182732 |
| Poetry | |||
| Corpus | Michael Symmons | Jonathan Cape | 0224073427 |
| Biography | |||
| ‘My Heart is my Own’: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots | John Guy | Fourth Estate | 184115752x |
| Children's Book | |||
| Not the End of The World | Geraldine McCaughrean | Oxford University Press | 0192719726 |
Shortlists (announced mid-November)
| Novel | |||
| Title | Author | Publisher | ISBN |
| Case Histories | Kate Atkinson | Doubleday | 0385607997 |
| Birds Without Wings | Louis de Bernières | Secker & Warburg | 0436205491 |
| The Line of Beauty | Alan Hollinghurst | Picador | 033048320x |
| Small Island | BAndrea Levy | Review | 0755307496 |
| First Novel | |||
| Title | Author | Publisher | ISBN |
| Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell | Susanna Clarke | Bloomsbury | 0747570558 |
| The Land as Viewed from the Sea | Richard Collins | Seren Books | 1854113674 |
| Eve Green | Susan Fletcher | Fourth Estate | 0007182732 |
| The Maze | Panos Karnezis | Jonathan Cape | 0224069764 |
| Poetry | |||
| Title | Author | Publisher | ISBN |
| These Days | Leontia Flynn | Jonathan Cape | 0224071971 |
| Ghosts | John Fuller | Chatto & Windus | 0701177403 |
| Ground Water | Matthew Hollis | Bloodaxe | 185224657X |
| Corpus | Michael Symmons Roberts | Jonathan Cape | 0224073427 |
| Biography | |||
| Title | Author | Publisher | ISBN |
| ‘My Heart is my Own’: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots | John Guy | Fourth Estate | 184115752x |
| Jabez: The Rise and Fall of a Victorian Rogue | David McKie | Atlantic | 1843541300 |
| Stephen Spender: The Authorized Biography | John Sutherland | Viking | 0670883034 |
| V.S. Pritchett: A Working Life | Jeremy Treglown | Chatto & Windus | 070117322x |
