SHORTLIST ANNOUNCED FOR LAKELAND BOOK OF YEAR COMPETITION

Sixteen authors have made the final shortlist for the Lakeland Book of the Year competition 2009, but you’ll have to wait until 7 July – the date of the special literary luncheon at the Old England Hotel in Bowness-on-Windermere to find out who’s won. There were over 70 entries into the competition this year, the 25th anniversary of the awards , which were established back in 1984 by Cumbria Tourism and Hunter Davies.
Judges Hunter Davies, Fiona Armstrong and Kathleen Jones have selected the best books in five categories: People and Business; Landscape and Tradition, Arts and Literature, Illustrated Books and Guides, and then an overall Lakeland Book of the Year title will be announced from all the categories with the winner receiving a framed certificate and a £200 cheque.
Also being announced on the awards day will be the Best Cumbrian Book ever, sponsored by Cumbria Life magazine and voted for by the public. The judges have chosen five or six books in four genres – fiction, poetry, non-fiction and children’s – and the public can still register a vote on the shortlisted titles, available at www.golakes.co.uk/lakelandbook The list includes literary luminaries from decades ago such as Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter, as well as modern-day authors such as Melvyn Bragg and Sarah Hall.

Lakeland Book of the Year 2009 shortlist:

People & Business
The Life and Work of W.A Poucher: A Camera in the Hills by Roly Smith, of Bakewell, Derbys
Ivver Sen by Keith Richardson, from Keswick
Voices from Barrow and Furness by Alice Leach, from Dalton-in-Furness

Landscape & Tradition
St Martin’s: The Making of a Masterpiece by Arthur Penn (dec’d) by his son, David Penn, of Staveley
A Guide to the Stone Circles of Cumbria by Robert W.E Farrah, of Penrith
A Walk on the Wild Side by Carole Morland, from Tebay

Arts & Literature
The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth by Frances Wilson, of Faber and Faber, London
Lorna Graves by Judith Palmer, from London
Inside Story Selected Poems by William Scammel (dec’d) by Christopher Pilling, Keswick

Illustrated
Capturing the Mountains: The Lake District through the lens of the Abraham Brothers by Susan Steinberg, of Keswick
Bygone Whitehaven Volume 7 by Michael Moon, of Whitehaven
Wetheral and Great Corby by Denis Perriam & David Ramshaw, of Carlisle

Guides
Burneside – An Illustrated Profile of a Cumbrian Village by John Sheils, of Burneside
The Quest for the Golden Age of Whitehaven by Chris Jones, of Holmrook nr Ravenglass
Another Country: A Guide to the Children’s Books of the Lake District and Cumbria by James Mackenzie, of Newcastle

Lakeland Book of the Year Best Ever Book shortlist:

Children’s
Catherine Cannon – Felix the Fast Tractor
John Cunliffe – Postman Pat
Kathleen Fidler – The Droving Lad
Beatrix Potter – The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin
Arthur Ransome – Swallows and Amazons

Non-fiction
Norman Nicholson – Portrait of the Lakes
Juliet Barker – William Wordsworth- a Life
Alfred Wainwright- Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells
Kathleen Jones – A Passionate Sisterhood
George MacDonald Fraser – Quartered Safe Out Here

Fiction
Hugh Walpole – Rogue Herries
Melvyn Bragg – The Maid of Buttermere
Margaret Forster – Shadow Baby
John Murray – Radioactivity
Sarah Hall – Haweswater

Poetry
William Wordsworth – Ode to Daffodils
William Wordsworth – She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways
William Wordsworth – Surprised by Joy
Norman Nicholson – Wall
Helen Farish -July
Susannah Blamire – The Cumberland Scold