The Costa Book Awards are among the United Kingdom's most prestigious literary awards. However, they are also open to writers from the Republic of Ireland. They were known as the Whitbread Book Awards until 2006, when Costa Coffee, a subsidiary of Whitbread, took over sponsorship. The awards, launched in 1971, 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. One of the main events in the British literary calendar, they are sometimes announced as if they are the first of the year's literary prizes, whereas they are actually the last. 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.
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The process
Currently each year winners are chosen by five separate judging panels picking from different shortlists in five different categories:
- Best novel
- Best first novel
- Children's
- Poetry
- Biography
Each category winner receives £5,000. One of the category winners is then selected as the Costa Book of the Year and given a further £25,000. This overall award is chosen by a judging panel that comprises five judges from the previous category round and four new ones. The category winners do not have to be British but must be resident in the UK for at least six months of the year.
Costa Book of the Year winners
- 2006 - Stef Penney, The Tenderness of Wolves
Prior to 2006, "Whitbread Book of the Year"
- 2005 - Hilary Spurling, Matisse The Master
- 2004 - Andrea Levy, Small Island
- 2003 - Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
- 2002 - Claire Tomalin, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self
- 2001 - Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass
- 2000 - Matthew Kneale, English Passengers
- 1999 - Seamus Heaney, Beowulf
- 1999 - Ted Hughes, Birthday Letters
- 1998 - Ted Hughes, Tales from Ovid
- 1995 - Kate Atkinson, Behind the Scenes at the Museum
- 1994 - William Trevor, Felicia’s Journey
- 1993 - Joan Brady, Theory of War
- 1992 - Jeff Torrington, Swing Hammer Swing!
- 1991 - John Richardson, A Life of Picasso
- 1990 - Nicholas Mosley, Hopeful Monsters
- 1989 - Richard Holmes, Coleridge: Early Visions
- 1988 - Paul Sayer, The Comforts of Madness"
- 1987 - Christopher Nolan, Under the eye of the clock
- 1986 - Kazuo Ishiguro, An Artist of the Floating World
- 1985 - Douglas Dunn, Elegies
- 1984 - James Buchan, A Parish of Rich Women
- 1983 - John Fuller, Flying to Nowhere
- 1982 - Bruce Chatwin, On The Black Hill
- 1981 - William Boyd, A Good Man in Africa
- 1980 - David Lodge, How Far Can You Go?
Costa Book Award category winners
2006
- First Novel Award – Stef Penney, The Tenderness of Wolves
- Novel Award — William Boyd, Restless
- Children's Book Award — Linda Newbery, Set in Stone
- Poetry Award — John Haynes, Letter to Patience
- Biography Award — Brian Thompson, Keeping Mum
See also
- List of British literary awards
- List of literary awards
- English literature
- British literature
- Literature
- List of years in literature
External links
- Costa Book Awards official web site
- The most honored Costa/Whitbread Book Award shortlist books
- Injecting Caffeine Into the Whitbread (Now Costa) Book Awards at The Book Standard
