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
• , 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
• , Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett

Poetry[]

Winners:

• Seamus Heaney, The Spirit Level

Shortlist:

• U. A. 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