Whitbread Book Awards

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The Whitbread Book Awards are among the United Kingdom's most prestigious literary awards. The awards are named after and funded by Whitbread plc, a leading British leisure company.

The awards, launched in 1971, are given both for high literary merit but also for works that are enjoyable reading and whose aim is to convey the enjoyment of reading to the widest possible audience. As such they are a more populist literary prize than the Booker Prize. One of the main events in the British literary calendar, they are sometimes announced as if they are the first of the year's literary prizes, whereas they are actually the last.

In 1989, controversy erupted when the judges first awarded the Best Novel prize to Alexander Stuart's The War Zone, then withdrew the prize prior to the ceremony amid acrimony among the judges, ultimately awarding it to Lindsay Clarke's The Chymical Wedding.

The 2005 awards are to be the last sponsored by Whitbread. In 2006, Costa Coffee took over as sponsors for the awards, changing the name to the Costa Book Awards.

The Process

Currently each year winners are chosen by five separate judging panels picking from different shortlists in five different categories

The categories are:

Best novel
Best first novel
Children's
Poetry
Biography

Each category winner receives £5000. One of the category winners is selected as the "Book of the Year" and given a further £25 000. The overall Whitbread book of the year is chosen by a judging panel that comprises five judges from the previous category round and four new ones.

The category winners do not have to be British but must be resident in the UK for at least six months of the year.

Book of the Year Award Winners

2005 - Hilary Spurling, Matisse The Master
2004 - Andrea Levy, Small Island
2003 - Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
2002 - Claire Tomalin, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self
2001 - Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass
2000 - Matthew Kneale, English Passengers
1999 - Seamus Heaney, Beowulf
1998 - Ted Hughes, Birthday Letters
1997 - Ted Hughes, Tales from Ovid
1996 - Seamus Heaney, The Spirit Level
1995 - Kate Atkinson, Behind the Scenes at the Museum
1994 - William Trevor, Felicia’s Journey
1993 - Joan Brady, Theory of War
1992 - Jeff Torrington, Swing Hammer Swing!
1991 - John Richardson, A Life of Picasso
1990 - Nicholas Mosley, Hopeful Monsters
1989 - Richard Holmes, Coleridge: Early Visions
1988 - Paul Sayer, The Comforts of Madness
1987 - Christopher Nolan, Under the eye of the clock
1986 - Kazuo Ishiguro, An Artist of the Floating World
1985 - Douglas Dunn, Elegies
1984 - James Buchan, A Parish of Rich Women
1983 - John Fuller, Flying to Nowhere
1982 - Bruce Chatwin, On The Black Hill
1981 - William Boyd, A Good Man in Africa
1980 - David Lodge, How Far Can You Go?

Whitbread Awards by year

2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997 | 1996 | 1995 | 1994 | 1993 | 1992 | 1991 | 1990 | 1989 | 1988 | 1987 | 1986 | 1985 | 1984 | 1983 | 1982 | 1981 | 1980 | 1979 | 1978 | 1977 | 1976 | 1975 | 1974 | 1973 | 1972 | 1971

External links

[Whitbread Book Awards] official web site
[Most honored Whitbread Book Award shortlist books]
[Injecting Caffeine Into the Whitbread (Now Costa) Book Awards] at The Book Standard

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