1996 Whitbread Awards

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"