Annal:2004 Whitbread Book Award for First Novel
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Whitbread Book Award in the year 2004. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
Eve Green: A Novel
- 2004 Whitbread-1st Novel winner
- 2004 LATimes–1st Fiction finalist
- Score: 16.54
“Ten days before Christmas I lost her. What do I remember? Every little thing…. For twenty-one years I’ve picked away at my memory of it, lifting up moments, testing myself. Believing I might have finally healed to a neat white scar.”
Pregnant with her first child, Eve Green recalls her mother’s death when she was eight years old and her struggle to make sense of her parents’ mysterious romantic past. Eve is sent to live with her grandparents in rural Wales, where she finds comfort in friendships with Daniel, a quiet farmhand, and…
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel
- 2005 Hugo-Novel winner
- 2005 Mythopoeic-Adult winner
- 2005 WFA–Novel winner
- 2005 Nebula nominee
- 2004 IHG–1st Novel nominee
- 2004 Whitbread-1st Novel shortlist
- Score: 48.55
English magicians were once the wonder of the known world, with fairy servants at their beck and call; they could command winds, mountains, and woods. But by the early 1800s they have long since lost the ability to perform magic. They can only write long, dull papers about it, while fairy servants are nothing but a fading memory.
But at Hurtfew Abbey in Yorkshire, the rich, reclusive Mr Norrell has assembled a wonderful library of lost and forgotten books from England’s magical past and regained some of the powers of England’s magicians. He goes to London and…
The Land as Viewed from the Sea
- 2004 Whitbread-1st Novel shortlist
- Score: 6.54
Two friends work together on a smallholding: one allows the other to read the novel he is writing, The Land as Viewed from the Sea. As fiction begins to intrude upon reality, the friends’ relationship is redefined, threatening to change their lives forever.
With great delicacy and intelligence, Richard Collins has written a love story which is at once innovative, timeless and deeply affecting.
- 2004 Whitbread-1st Novel shortlist
- Score: 6.54
In the summer of 1922, after a series of decisive defeats at the hands of the Turks, the Greek army is in retreat from Asia Minor. Thousands of soldiers sweep toward the Mediterranean coast, leaving behind their dead, their dreams of empire…and one lost brigade, wandering in the Anatolian desert under a seemingly inexpiable curse. As their leader slips further and further into morphine-dulled despair, with no hope of escape for his troops, morale crumbles among the officers. Communist leaflets appear mysteriously every morning in the camp. A rash of thefts goes…
