1996 Whitbread Awards
The Whitbread Awards (1971-2005), called Costa Book Awards since 2006, are literary awards in the United Kingdom, awarded both for high literary merit but also for works considered enjoyable reading. This page gives details of the awards given in the year 1996.
Book of the Year
- Seamus Heaney, The Spirit Level
Children's Book
Winner:
- Anne Fine, The Tulip Touch
Shortlist:
- Russell Hoban, The Trokeville Way
- Geraldine McCaughrean, Plundering Paradise
- Philip Pullman, Clockwork or All Wound Up
First Novel
Winner:
- John Lanchester, The Debt to Pleasure
Shortlist:
- Seamus Deane, Reading In the Dark
- Georgina Hammick, The Arizona Game
- Mary Morrissy, Mother of Pearl
Novel
Winner:
- Beryl Bainbridge, Every Man for Himself
Shortlist:
- Neil Bartlett, Mr Clive & Mr Page
- J. G. Ballard, Cocaine Nights
- Patrick McGrath, Asylum
- Graham Swift, Last Orders
- Fay Weldon, Worst Fears
Biography
Winners:
- Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: A Life
Shortlist:
- Rosemary Ashton, George Eliot: A Life
- Flora Fraser, The Unruly Queen: The Life of Queen Caroline
- James Knowlson, Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett
Poetry
Winners:
- Seamus Heaney, The Spirit Level
Shortlist:
- UA Fanthorpe, Safe As Houses
- Alice Oswald, The Thing in the Gap-Stone Stile
- Christopher Reid, Expanded Universes
- Pauline Stainer, The Wound-dresser’s Dream
References
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