The category winners for the Costa (formerly Whitbread) Book Awards have been announced.
The headlines of course have been grabbed by former publisher Diana Athill's win for
Somewhere Towards The End in the biography section - she's 91 years old! Judges called the book :
... a perfect memoir of old age – candid, detailed, charming, totally lacking in self-pity or sentimentality and above all, beautifully, beautifully written ...
Sebastian Barry won the best novel prize with
The Secret Scripture, which many feel should have won this year's Booker. Michelle Magorian won the children's book award with
Just Henry, of which the judges said :
Just Henry is a soaring, uplifting warm bath of a book – a wonderful roller-coaster of a story which we all absolutely loved.
Sadie Jones took the Best First Novel Award for
The Outcast, while Adam Foulds, who won the poetry prize for
The Broken Word, which is about the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya.
It is a rare achievement to write a poetry book that the reader simply can't put down. Readers of poetry and fiction alike will be swept along by its chilling narrative.
The overall winner will be announced on January 27.
The category winners for the Costa (formerly Whitbread) Book Awards have been announced. The headlines of course have been grabbed by former publisher Diana Athill's win for Somewhere Towards The End in the biography section - she's 91 years old! Judges called the book :
Sebastian Barry won the best novel prize with The Secret Scripture, which many feel should have won this year's Booker. Michelle Magorian won the children's book award with Just Henry, of which the judges said :
