Costa Shortlists

The shortlists for the various categories of the Costa Prize have been announced, and here's the full list :

Costa First Novel Award

• The Finest Type of English Womanhood by Rachel Heath
  
• John the Revelator by Peter Murphy
  
• Beauty by Raphael Selbourne
  
• The Girl with Glass Feet by Ali Shaw
  

Costa Novel Award

• Family Album by Penelope Lively
• Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
• The Elephant Keeper by Christopher Nicholson
• Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

Costa Biography Award

• The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius by Graham Farmelo
• The Music Room by William Fiennes
• Coda by Simon Gray
• Dancing to the Precipice by Caroline Moorehead

Costa Poetry Award

• Angels Over Elsinore by Clive James
• One Eye'd Leigh by Katharine Kilalea
• Darwin: A Life in Poems by Ruth Padel
• A Scattering by Christopher Reid

Costa Children's Award

• Solace of the Road by Siobhan Dowd
• Troubadour by Mary Hoffman
• The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness
• Guantanamo Boy by Anna Perera

Two of the authors on the list, Simon Gray and Siobhan Dowd have been nominated posthumously.

More at The Independent, and you can find links to all the nominated books here.

The winners in each category will be announced on January 5th and the overall Book of the Year on January 25th.