The Whitbread 2005 shortlists were announced on Wednesday 16 November.
Novel Award shortlist (112 entries)
- Nick Hornby Long Way Down (Viking)
- Salman Rushdie Shalimar the Clown (Jonathan Cape)
- Ali Smith The Accidental (Hamish Hamilton)
- Christopher Wilson The Ballad of Lee Cotton (Little, Brown)
First Novel Award shortlist (80 entries)
- Tash Aw The Harmony Silk Factory (Harper Perennial)
- Diana Evans 26a (Chatto & Windus)
- Peter Hobbs The Short Day Dying (Faber and Faber)
- Rachel Zadok Gem Squash Tokoloshe (Pan Macmillan)
Biography Award shortlist (114 entries)
- Nigel Farndale Haw-Haw: the Tragedy of William and Margaret Joyce (Macmillan)
- Richard Mabey Nature Cure (Chatto & Windus)
- Alexander Masters Stuart: A Life Backwards (Fourth Estate)
- Hilary Spurling Matisse the Master (Hamish Hamilton)
Poetry Award shortlist (61 entries)
- David Harsent Legion (Faber and Faber)
- Christopher Logue Cold Calls (Faber and Faber)
- Richard Price Lucky Day (Carcanet)
- Jane Yeh Marabou (Carcanet)
Children’s Book Award shortlist (109 entries)
- Frank Cottrell Boyce Framed (Macmillan)
- Geraldine McCaughrean The White Darkness (Oxford University Press)
- Hilary McKay Permanent Rose (Hodder Headline)
- Kate Thompson The New Policeman (The Bodley Head)
Guardian: Snub for big beasts as Hornby makes Whitbread shortlist and link to Guardian reviews
The Times: Richard & Judy help writer on to prize list and link to Times reviews
The Independent: Former waitress on shortlist for Whitbread
The Daily Telegraph: Richard and Judy hopeful shortlisted for Whitbread and links to Telegraph reviews
BBC website: Hornby on track for novel prize
The ‘human interest’ story which many newspapers siezed upon was of Rachel Zadok who, working as a bar waitress in Herne Hill, South London, happened to see Channel 4’s Richard & Judy announcing their How To Get Published competition. She entered and made the shortlist of five (out of 46,000 entries) and, although not winning the contest, attracted the interest of publishers Pan Macmillan with her child’s-eye view of South Africa.
Nick Hornby, who has already written three international bestsellers (High Fidelity, About a Boy, How to be Good), finds himself for the first time shortlisted for a literary award with his latest book A Long Way Down.
Two books are of local interest: the author of The Accidental, Ali Smith, is a local author living in Cambridge and Alexander Master’s biography, Stuart: A Life Backwards, is about a violent drug addict, Stuart Shorter, he befriended whilst working at a Cambridge day centre for the homeless - Stuart died under a train before the book was published. Alexander Masters won funding for his book from the Arts Council England Writers’ Awards in 2003.
Salamn Rushdie won the Whitbread Novel Award in 1995 with The Moor’s Last Sigh and the Man Booker Prize in 1991 for Midnight’s Children which went on to win the ‘Booker of Bookers’ in 1993 as the best of the 25 Booker winners up to then. Ali Smith’s The Accidental was also shortlisted for this year’s Man Booker Prize, whilst both Salman Rushdie and Tash Aw failed to progress beyond the initial longlist. Diana Evans’ 26a has already won the 2005 Orange Award for New Writers. Christopher Wilson was previously shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel Award in 1991 with Mischief and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize with Blueglass.
Richard Mabey, better known as a nature writer, has written a book, Nature Cure, about his own experience of recovering from depression - he has won the Whitbread Biography Award before in 1986 with Gilbert White, a biography of The Reverend Gilbert White (1720-1793), regarded as England’s first ecologist.
David Harsent’s poetry collection Legion has already won the 2005 Best Collection in the Forward Prize for Poetry. Geraldine McCaughrean has already won the Whitbread Children’s Award three times - most recently last year with Not the End of the World and Hilary McKay has won the Children’s Award once before in 2002 with Saffy’s Angel. Frank Cottrell Boyce has won the CILIP Carnegie Medal in 2004 for his previous (and first) children’s book Millions.
The Whitbread Awards recognize the most enjoyable books of last year by writers based in the UK and Ireland. Each of the five category winners receive £5,000 - the category winners will be announced on Wednesday 4 January 2006. The overall winner, the Whitbread Book of the Year, receives £25,000 - the overall winner will be selected and announced at the Whitbread Book Awards ceremony in central London on Tuesday 24 January 2006.
Although the Whitbread Book Award has existed in various forms since 1971, originally as the Whitbread Literary Awards, the controversial overall Whitbread Book of the Year award was first awarded in 1985. Some think that it is impossible to pick an overall winner out of five different genres of writing - comparing, say, biography with poetry. The spread of winners appears to disadvantage children’s books: the overall award has been won seven times by a novel, three times by a first novel, four times by a biography, five times by a collection of poetry and only once by a children’s book.
Last year’s winners were:
- Novel Award and overall Whitbread Book of the Year 2004: Andrea Levy Small Island
- First Novel Award: Susan Fletcher Eve Green
- Biography Award: John Guy My Heart is My Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots
- Poetry Award: Michael Symmons Roberts Corpus
- Children’s Book Award: Geraldine McCaughrean Not the End of the World
