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2004 Whitbread Book Awards Category Winners
12/01/2005
- Small Island triumphs in Whitbread Novel Award
- Outsider Eve Green beats Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
to take Whitbread First Novel Award - Geraldine McCaughrean scoops third Whitbread Children’s Book Award
Whitbread today announced the 2004 Whitbread Book Award winners - Novel, First Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children’s Book. The Whitbread Book Awards, which were established by the UK’s leading hospitality business in 1971, have the single aim of celebrating the most enjoyable books of the last year by writers based in the UK and Ireland. The five successful authors who will now contest for the Whitbread Book of the Year are: - 2004 Orange Prize winner Andrea Levy for Small Island in the Novel Award category
- Susan Fletcher for Eve Green, who wins the First Novel Award
- My Heart is My Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots by John Guy, which claims the Biography Award
- Award-winning radio writer and documentary filmmaker, Michael Symmons Roberts, who wins the Poetry Award with Corpus
- Triple Children’s Book Award winner, Geraldine McCaughrean, for Not the End of the World
Alan Parker, chief executive of Whitbread PLC, said: “Once again, our judges have selected five terrific books from the different categories as Award winners. Our final judges will have a really tough time selecting just one from these five for the title of Whitbread Book of the Year - but it all makes for an exciting awards ceremony later on this month.” The five Whitbread Book Award winners, each of whom will receive £5,000, were selected from 450 entries. The five books are now eligible for the ultimate prize – the 2004 Whitbread Book of the Year. The winner will be announced at The Brewery, in central London on Tuesday 25th January, 2005 by a panel of judges chaired by multi-award-winning newscaster, Sir Trevor McDonald OBE. For the second year running, members of the public can vote via the Whitbread Book Awards website – www.whitbreadbookawards.co.uk - for which of the five books they would select as Whitbread Book of the Year. Everyone who votes will be entered into a free prize draw to win a set of the category winners. A chart showing the most hotly-tipped book according to the public vote will also be available on the website. The Whitbread Book Awards, in partnership with the National Reading Campaign, CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals), amazon.co.uk and the Booksellers Association, continue to explore new ways of promoting the enjoyment of reading in the UK. This year, Whitbread has joined forces with the National Library for the Blind (NLB) and will fund the Braille transcription of two 2004 Whitbread Award winning books, which will include the Whitbread Book of the Year, plus if different, the Whitbread Children's Book Award winner. Helen Brazier, NLB's Chief Executive, said: "Fewer than five per cent of books published in the UK are ever produced in a format that visually impaired people can read. We are currently making huge efforts to improve access to Braille books and very much welcome Whitbread's support." Whitbread PLC, which was originally founded in 1742, is the UK's leading hospitality business, managing some of the UK's strongest brands in hotels, restaurants and racquets, health and fitness clubs. The 50,000 people who work in Whitbread’s businesses serve 10 million customers each month at more than 1,400 locations across the UK. Full details of the shortlists follow. For additional information please visit www.whitbreadbookawards.co.uk .
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