 | The Whitbread Book Awards 2005
|   | LONDON (Reuters) - Hilary Spurling created a major literary surprise on Tuesday when her biography of the French painter Henri Matisse won the Whitbread Book of the Year award after a battle royal among the judges.
"It was unbelievably close. I have never been in a judging panel that was so close," said chairman of the judges Michael Morpurgo after picking the hotly contested winner of the prize from a shortlist of five.
"She managed to paint a picture of a painter. It was an extraordinary work," Morpurgo said after Spurling won for the second volume of her Matisse biography.
"Matisse The Master" was described by the judges as "One of the landmark biographies of the last few years which has already changed the history of art."
It had been 15 years in the writing with Spurling given unprecedented access to Matisse family papers and correspondence.
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|  | The Accidental By Ali Smith
What's it about: The Accidental pans in on the Norfolk holiday home of the Smart family one hot summer. There, a beguiling stranger called Amber appears at the door bearing all sorts of unexpected gifts, trampling over family boundaries and sending each of the Smarts scurrying from the dark into the light. A novel about the ways that seemingly chance encounters irrevocably transform our understanding of ourselves, The Accidental explores the nature of truth, the role of fate, and the power of storytelling.
What they say: "Smith has a talent for finding unexpected flashes of beauty and comedy in the everyday" - Julie Myerson, Daily Telegraph
Chances of scooping the Prize: Very good. Ali Smith has already come close to winning the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize and is currently 5/4 favourite for the Whitbread.
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|  | The Harmony Silk Factory By Tash Aw
What's it about: A landmark work of fiction from one of Britain's most exciting new writers: The Harmony Silk Factory is a devastating love story set against the turmoil of Malaysia in the 1930s and 40s, with the rumbling of the Second World War in the background and the Japanese about to invade.
What they say: "Highly enjoyable and fluently written...the story is engrossing and touching." - Evening Standard
"A hugely confident, ravishingly descriptive debut of distorted truths and assumed identities." - The Guardian
Chances of scooping the Prize: Not bad at all. The Harmony Silk Factory has earned rave reviews across the board and Tash Aw has already come in for special praise from the Whitbread judges. Current odds 5/1.
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|  | Matisse The Master By Hilary Spurling
What’s it about: Hilary Spurling's biography investigates the secret life of Matisse, whose painting shocked and infuriated his contemporaries while paving the way for modern art, and in this second volume, she tells the story of his maturity as an artist and the relationship between his life and art between 1909 and 1954, his glory years.
What they say: "I cannot praise Spurling's measured, brilliantly researched and wonderfully written biography enough." - Adrian Searle, The Guardian
Chances of scooping the Prize: Strong. Matisse the Master took Hilary Spurling 15 years to complete and is widely considered to be a landmark artistic biography. Current odds 5/2.
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|  | Cold Calls By Christopher Logue
What’s it about: This is the fifth and penultimate instalment of Christopher Logue’s celebrated account of the Iliad. Cold Calls continues from a point nine years after the Greeks have launched a thousand ships to capture Helen of Troy.
What they say: "The scene is set for Cold Calls, the fifth and penultimate instalment of Logue's Homer, an ongoing project - a piece of performance-art for the page rather than the stage - which has taken several decades to unfold, and has been described as, 'Less a translation than an adaptation. Less an adaptation in fact, than an original poem of considerable power.'" - Derek Mahon
Chances of scooping the Prize: Christopher Logue is following in the footsteps of literary heavyweights Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney. Current odds 4/1.
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|  | The New Policeman By Kate Thompson
What’s it about: Everyone in Kinvara is conscious that time is flying past, faster and faster - to such an extent that when JJ asks his mother what she would like for her birthday, she asks for more time. When he sets out to buy his mother some time, he discovers the fate of a flute which will provide some clues to his problems. JJ makes the transition to Tir na n’Og, the land of eternal youth, where he finds that the fairy people are also having a problem with time and it falls to his lot to locate the leak between the two parallel worlds.
What they say: “There is something hallucinatory, if not delirious about this stylish, magical book” - The Guardian
Chances of scooping the Prize: Kate Thompson is currently the outsider for the Prize at odds of 6/1.
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|  | Your Views on the Whitbread Prize
What do you think about the contenders for the Whitbread Book of the Year? Does any one of the books have more of a chance of scooping the prize than the others? Are you surprised by the selection of category winners? Send us your comments and we’ll publish the best ones here.
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|  | And The Winner Was...
Irish author John Banville scooped the 2005 Man Booker Prize for fiction for his novel, The Sea. One of the world's most prestigious book prizes, the Booker carries with it a cheque for £50,000 and a guaranteed uplift in sales.
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