Whitbread Book Awards honors ‘Accidental’

Scottish writer Ali Smith’s “The Accidental” has been named novel of the year in Britain’s prestigious Whitbread Book Awards.

Smith, best known as a short-story writer, won the award for her first full-length novel, the tale of an enigmatic young woman who disturbs a family’s uneventful holiday in an English town.

Other finalists included Nick Hornby’s “A Long Way Down” and Salman Rushdie’s “Shalimar the Clown.”

The Whitbread prizes are awarded in five categories: novel, first novel, poetry, biography and children’s book. Each category winner receives $8,700.

One of the five will receive the $43,000 Whitbread Book of the Year Award on Jan. 24.