Costa Book Awards

The Costa Book Awards are a set of annual literary awards recognising English-language books by writers based in Britain and Ireland. They were inaugurated for 1971 publications and known as the Whitbread Book Awards until 2006 when Costa Coffee, a subsidiary of Whitbread, took over sponsorship.^[1][2] The companion Costa Short Story Award was established in 2012.^[3]

The awards are given both for high literary merit but also for works that are enjoyable reading and whose aim is to convey the enjoyment of reading to the widest possible audience. As such, they are a more populist literary prize than the Booker Prize.

In 1989, controversy erupted when the judges first awarded the Best Novel prize to Alexander Stuart's The War Zone, then withdrew the prize prior to the ceremony amid acrimony among the judges, ultimately awarding it to Lindsay Clarke's The Chymical Wedding.

Process

Authors need not be British or Irish but they must have been resident in the UK or Ireland for at least six months in each of the previous three years.

There are five book award categories, without change since the Poetry Award was introduced in 1985, although the children's category has been termed "children's novel" or "children's book of the year".^[1][2]

• Novel
• First novel
• Children's book
• Poetry
• Biography

The winning books are selected from shortlists by five distinct panels of judges. Each of the five winning writers receives £5,000.

The prize requires a £5,000 fee from publishers if a book is to be shortlisted.^[4]

One of the winning books is then named Costa Book of the Year with a further £25,000 prize. That overall award is determined by a panel comprising five judges from the first round and four new ones.

• Short story

The short story award was established in 2012 with a prize of £3,500 for the first, £1,500 for the second and £500 for the third.^[5] The winning story is determined by public vote from a shortlist of six that are selected by a panel of judges. The process is "blind" at both stages for the unpublished entries are anonymous until the conclusion.^[3][6]

In the inaugural year, the six short story finalists had been published anonymously online by 28 November 2012 and the public vote was underway. The winner was to be announced 29 January 2013.^[6]

Winners

Bold font and blue ribbon () distinguish the overall Costa Book of the Year.^[1]

List of award winners

Year	Award
	Novel	First novel	Children's book	Poetry	Biography	Short story
1971	Gerda Charles The Destiny Waltz	—	—	Geoffrey Hill Mercian Hymns	Michael Meyer Henrik Ibsen	—
1972	Susan Hill The Bird of Night	—	Rumer Godden The Diddakoi	—	James Pope-Hennessy Anthony Trollope	—
1973	Shiva Naipaul The Chip-Chip Gatherers	—	Alan Aldridge and William Plomer The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast	—	John Wilson CB: A Life of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman	—
1974	Iris Murdoch The Sacred and Profane Love Machine	Claire Tomalin The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft	Russell Hoban and Quentin Blake How Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsmen Jill Paton Welsh The Emperor's Winding Sheet	—	Andrew Boyle Poor Dear Brendan	—
1975	William McIlvanney Docherty	Ruth Spalding The Improbable Puritan: A Life of Bulstrode Whitelocke	—	—	Helen Corke In Our Infancy	—
1976	William Trevor The Children of Dynmouth	—	Penelope Lively A Stitch in Time	—	Winifred Gerin Elizabeth Gaskell	—
1977	Beryl Bainbridge Injury Time	—	Shelagh Macdonald No End to Yesterday	—	Nigel Nicolson Mary Curzon	—
1978	Paul Theroux Picture Palace	—	Philippa Pearce The Battle of Bubble & Squeak	—	John Grigg Lloyd George: The People's Champion	—
1979	Jennifer Johnston The Old Jest	—	Peter Dickinson Tulku	—	Penelope Mortimer About Time	—
1980	David Lodge How Far Can You Go	—	Leon Garfield John Diamond	—	David Newsome On the Edge of Paradise: A. C. Benson, Diarist	—
1981	Maurice Leitch Silver's City	William Boyd A Good Man in Africa	Jane Gardam The Hollow Land	—	Nigel Hamilton Monty: The Making of a General	—
1982	John Wain Young Shoulders	Bruce Chatwin On the Black Hill	W. J. Corbett The Song of Pentecost	—	Edward Crankshaw Bismark	—
1983	William Trevor Fools of Fortune	John Fuller Flying to Nowhere	Roald Dahl The Witches	—	Victoria Glendinning Vita Kenneth Rose King George V	—
1984	Christopher Hope Kruger's Alp	James Buchan A Parish of Rich Women	Barbara Willard The Queen of the Pharisees' Children	—	Peter Ackroyd T. S. Eliot	Diane Rowe Tomorrow is our Permanent Address
1985	Peter Ackroyd Hawksmoor	Jeanette Winterson Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit	Janni Howker The Nature of the Beast	Douglas Dunn Elegies	Ben Pimlott Hugh Dalton	—
1986	Kazuo Ishiguro An Artist of the Floating World	Jim Crace Continent	Andrew Taylor The Coal House	Peter Reading Stet	Richard Mabey Gilbert White	—
1987	Ian McEwan The Child in Time	Francis Wyndham The Other Garden	Geraldine McCaughrean A Little Lower than the Angels	Seamus Heaney The Haw Lantern	Christopher Nolan Under the Eye of the Clock	—
1988	Salman Rushdie The Satanic Verses	Paul Sayer The Comforts of Madness	Judy Allen Awaiting Developments	Peter Porter The Automatic Oracle	A. N. Wilson Tolstoy	—
1989	Lindsay Clarke The Chymical Wedding	James Hamilton-Paterson Gerontius	Hugh Scott Why Weeps the Brogan	Michael Donaghy Shibboleth	Richard Holmes Coleridge: Early Visions	—
1990	Nicholas Mosley Hopeful Monsters	Hanif Kureishi The Buddha of Suburbia	Peter Dickinson AK	Paul Durcan Daddy, Daddy	Ann Thwaite AA Milne – His Life	—
1991	Jane Gardam The Queen of the Tambourine	Gordon Burn Alma Cogan	Diana Hendry Harvey Angell	Michael Longley Gorse Fires	John Richardson A Life of Picasso	—
1992	Alasdair Gray Poor Things	Jeff Torrington Swing Hammer Swing!	Gillian Cross The Great Elephant Chase	Tony Harrison The Gaze of the Gorgon	Victoria Glendinning Trollope	—
1993	Joan Brady Theory of War	Rachel Cusk Saving Agnes	Anne Fine Flour Babies	Carol Ann Duffy Mean Time	Andrew Motion Philip Larkin: A Writer's Life	—
1994	William Trevor Felicia's Journey	Fred D'Aguiar The Longest Memory	Geraldine McCaughrean Gold Dust	James Fenton Out of Danger	Brenda Maddox D H Lawrence: The Married Man	—
1995	Salman Rushdie The Moor's Last Sigh	Kate Atkinson Behind the Scenes at the Museum	Michael Morpurgo The Wreck of the Zanzibar	Bernard O'Donoghue Gunpowder	Roy Jenkins Gladstone	—
1996	Beryl Bainbridge Every Man for Himself	John Lanchester The Debt to Pleasure	Anne Fine The Tulip Touch	Seamus Heaney The Spirit Level	Diarmaid MacCulloch Thomas Cranmer: A Life	—
1997	Jim Crace Quarantine	Pauline Melville The Ventriloquist's Tale	Andrew Norriss Aquila	Ted Hughes Tales from Ovid	Graham Robb Victor Hugo	—
1998	Justin Cartwright Leading the Cheers	Giles Foden The Last King of Scotland	David Almond Skellig	Ted Hughes Birthday Letters	Amanda Foreman Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire	—
1999	Rose Tremain Music and Silence	Tim Lott White City Blue	J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban	Seamus Heaney Beowulf	David Cairns Berlioz Volume Two: Servitude and Greatness	—
2000	Matthew Kneale English Passengers	Zadie Smith White Teeth	Jamila Gavin Coram Boy	John Burnside The Asylum Dance	Lorna Sage Bad Blood – A Memoir	—
2001	Patrick Neate Twelve Bar Blues	Sid Smith Something Like A House	Philip Pullman The Amber Spyglass	Selima Hill Bunny	Diana SouhamivSelkirk's Island	—
2002	Michael Frayn Spies	Norman Lebrecht The Song of Names	Hilary McKay Saffy's Angel	Paul Farley The Ice Age	Claire Tomalin Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self	—
2003	Mark Haddon The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time	DBC Pierre Vernon God Little	David Almond The Fire-Eaters	Don Paterson Landing Light	DJ Taylor Orwell: The Life	—
2004	Andrea Levy Small Island	Susan Fletcher Eve Green	Geraldine McCaughrean Not the End of the World	Michael Symmons Roberts Corpus	John Guy My Heart Is My Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots	—
2005	Ali Smith The Accidental	Tash Aw The Harmony Silk Factory	Kate Thompson The New Policeman	Christopher Logue Cold Calls	Hilary Spurling Matisse the Master	—
2006	William Boyd Restless	Stef Penney The Tenderness of Wolves	Linda Newbery Set in Stone	John Haynes Letter to Patience	Brian Thompson Keeping Mum	—
2007	A.L. Kennedy Day	Catherine O'Flynn What Was Lost	Ann Kelley The Bower Bird	Jean Sprackland Tilt	Simon Sebag Montefiore Young Stalin	—
2008	Sebastian Barry The Secret Scripture	Sadie Jones The Outcast	Michelle Magorian Just Henry	Adam Foulds The Broken Word	Diana Athill Somewhere Towards the End	—
2009	Colm Tóibin Brooklyn	Kate Thompson The New Policeman	Patrick Ness The Ask and the Answer	Christopher Reid A Scattering	Graham Farmelo The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius	—
2010	Maggie O'Farrell The Hand That First Held Mine	Kishwar Desai Witness the Night	Jason Wallace Out of Shadows	Jo Shapcott Of Mutability	Edmund de Waal The Hare with Amber Eyes	—
2011	Andrew Miller Pure	Christie Watson Tiny Sunbirds Far Away	Moira Young Blood Red Road	Carol Ann Duffy The Bees	Matthew Hollis Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas	—
2012	Hilary Mantel Bring up the Bodies	Francesca Segal The Innocents	Sally Gardner Maggot Moon	Kathleen Jamie The Overhaul	Mary Talbot and Bryan Talbot Dotter of Her Father's Eyes	Avril Joy Millie and Bird[7]
2013	Kate Atkinson Life after Life	Nathan Filer The Shock of the Fall	Chris Riddell Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse	Michael Symmons Roberts Drysalter	Lucy Hughes-Hallet The Pike	Angela Readman The Keeper of the Jackalopes
2014	Ali Smith How to Be Both	Emma Healey Elizabeth is Missing	Kate Saunders Five Children on the Western Front	Jonathan Edwards My Family and Other Superheroes	Helen Macdonald H is for Hawk	Zoe Gilbert Fishskin, Hareskin
2015	Kate Atkinson A God in Ruins	Andrew Michael Hurley The Loney	Frances Hardinge The Lie Tree	Don Paterson 40 Sonnets	Andrea Wulf The Invention of Nature	Danny Murphy Rogey
2016	Sebastian Barry Days Without End	Francis Spufford Golden Hill	Brian Conaghan The Bombs That Brought Us Together	Alice Oswald Falling Awake	Keggie Carew Dadland: A Journey into Uncharted Territory	Jess Kidd Dirty Little Fishes
"—" not awarded this year

See also

• List of British literary awards
• List of literary awards
• English literature
• British literature
• Literature
• List of years in literature

References

External links

• Official website
• Injecting Caffeine Into the Whitbread (Now Costa) Book Awards at The Book Standard
• Costa Book Awards directory at The Guardian newspaper