Andrea Levy has just won the 2004 Whitbread Book of the Year Award for Small Island.

Levy collected a cheque for £25,000 and Small Island will go down in history as the first book to win both the Orange Prize and the Whitbread.

The runners-up were the biography My Heart is My Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots by John Guy, the children’s book Not The End of the World by Geraldine McCaughrean, first-time novelist Susan Fletcher's Eve Green, and Corpus by poet Michael Symmons Roberts.

TV Newsreader Trevor McDonald, chair of the judges, said: 'All the books are winners and the decision was very difficult, but Small Island was written with enormous charm and was a clear choice for Whitbread Book of the Year.'

If you want to see what the fuss is all about, Small Island is available from Real Groovy here - for a trifling $26.95 including delivery.