If you’re looking for some great Christmas reading – or you want to buy books as presents – why not get some inspiration from the Costa Book Awards shortlist, which has recently been announced?
The Costa Book Awards (which, you may remember, used to be called the ‘Whitbread Book Awards’) are fairly unique in having 5 different categories:
First Novel, Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children’s Book.
It’s also the only prize which places children’s books alongside adult books.
There’s a winner in each category (who receives £5000) and then an overall winner of ‘Book of The Year’ who wins a further prize of £30,000. Not bad, eh?
I haven’t read any of the shortlist* so I’m afraid I can’t comment on the list although I’m pleased to see Louise Doughty is shortlisted for her novel, ‘Whatever You Love’ – just because I like her! (She was a tutor on a course I attended many years ago and I can highly recommend her book ‘A Novel In A Year’, which I have read a few times – but not yet acted upon!).
The winners will be announced in January 2011.
For details of the shortlisted books, see the Costa website by clicking here.
*Whenever I see a list of books shortlisted in a competition like this, I have a mad plan (for about five seconds), to read all the books before the results are announced – just to see if I agree with the judges! Of course, I’ve never had time to do it and I don’t suppose I ever will. But there you go, it’s a nice idea….!
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