We are delighted to reveal this year’s category winners for the East Anglian Book Awards – a partnership between Jarrold, the Eastern Daily Press, and the National Centre for Writing with support from UEA Faculty of Arts & Humanities.
Discover more about the category winners – as well as the identity of the winner of the East Anglia Book of the Year Award 2020 – on Thursday 19 November at our special online event >>
The House of One Hundred Clocks by A.M. Howell (Usborne)Helena and her parrot, Orbit, are swept off to Cambridge when her father is appointed clock-winder to one of the wealthiest men in England. There is only one rule: the clocks must never stop. But Helena discovers the house of one hundred clocks holds many mysteries; a ghostly figure, strange notes and disappearing winding keys Can she work out its secrets before time runs out? Buy now
Ann-Marie (A.M.) Howell said:
‘I’m absolutely thrilled to have won the Book of the Year Award! I’m still reeling at my book being selected from such an incredibly brilliant list of category winners. As well as living in the beautiful east of England, the history and landscape of this region provides huge inspiration for my children’s novels, making this award even more special. A huge thank you to all the award organisers and judges.’
The category winners are:
Judged by Alex Hammond, University of East Anglia
How To Be Autistic by Charlotte Amelia Poe (Myriad Editions)As we follow Charlotte’s journey through school and college, we become as awestruck by their extraordinary passion for life as by the enormous privations that they must undergo to live it. From food and fandom, to body modification and comic conventions, Charlotte’s experiences through the torments of schooldays and young adulthood leave us with a riot of conflicting emotions: horror, empathy, despair, laugh-out-loud amusement and, most of all, respect. Buy now
Judged by Amy Waller, University of East Anglia
The Choice by Claire Wade (Orion)Imagine a world where… everything you ate was monitored by the government. Every step you took was counted. Your children were weighed every day at school. Neighbours reported on neighbours and no one was safe from judgement. Sugar was illegal, and baking was a crime. Imagine if that world was here… What would you do? Buy now
Judged by George McKay, University of East Anglia
New York to California by Jeremy Page (Propolis)Novelist, traveller, scriptwriter, photographer: Jeremy Page is a man with a broad view of wide horizons. But on approaching middle age, he experienced a calling to return to the place which he – and his ancestors – had called home. Like the migratory eel, retracing a route back to somewhere it had once fought to leave, he decided to take a long, slow journey through a landscape both familiar but also separated by time and distance from his current life. Buy now
Judged by Stephen Church and Rebecca Pinner, University of East Anglia
Imperial Mud: The Fight for the Fens by James Boyce (Icon Books)Between the English Civil Wars and the mid-Victorian period, the proud indigenous population of the Fens of eastern England fought to preserve their homeland against an expanding empire. Masterfully argued and imbued with a keen sense of place, Imperial Mud reimagines not just the history of the Fens, but the history and identity of the English people. Buy now
Judged by B.J. Epstein, University of East Anglia
The House of One Hundred Clocks by A.M. Howell (Usborne)Helena and her parrot, Orbit, are swept off to Cambridge when her father is appointed clock-winder to one of the wealthiest men in England. There is only one rule: the clocks must never stop. But Helena discovers the house of one hundred clocks holds many mysteries; a ghostly figure, strange notes and disappearing winding keys Can she work out its secrets before time runs out? Buy now
Judged by Alison Winch, University of East Anglia
So Many Rooms by Laura Scott (Carcanet)The Guardian’s Poetry Book of the Month August 2019
So Many Rooms, the debut collection from Geoffrey Dearmer Prize-winning poet Laura Scott, moves with its own lyric strangeness, opening up different rooms and also different worlds. Buy now
Sponsored by East Anglian Writers
Artist Richard Wells for the cover of Ghostland: In Search of a Haunted Country by Edward Parnell.
Norfolk Library and Information Service and Suffolk Libraries
Sarah Hassan, Assistant Head of Service at Norfolk Library Information Service said:
‘Norfolk County Council Library and Information Service is enormously proud to accept this award. Libraries are about reading, learning and literacy and this is great recognition for the part we are playing during the pandemic and beyond. Libraries support people and communities – never more than now. Whether you are taking up our online events by visiting What’s On in Norfolk Libraries or reading or listening to books and magazines online, all the staff are looking forward hugely to welcoming you back into libraries after the lockdown. Thank you!’
