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

• Previous winners