The Costas are considered by many the UK's most prestigious book awards. Established by Whitbread Plc in 1971, they were rebranded the Costa Awards in 2006. Costa is a UK based coffee shop chain owned by Whitbread. The five category winners (First Novel, Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children's Book) are announced in early January, honoring books published the previous year. The Costa Book of the Year Award is announced in late January.
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H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald Winner of the 2014 Biography Award and Book of the Year Hardcover 3 Mar 2015. 288 pages. Published by Grove Press. Obsession, madness, memory, myth, and history combine to achieve a distinctive blend of nature writing and memoir from an outstanding literary innovator. BookBrowse will publish its review of H is For Hawk on March 3. More |
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How to be Both by Ali Smith Winner of the 2014 Novel Award Hardcover Dec 2014. 384 pages. Published by Pantheon Books. Two tales of love and injustice twist into a singular yarn where time gets timeless, structural gets playful, knowing gets mysterious, fictional gets real--and all life's givens get given a second chance. Winner of the 2014 Costa Best Novel Award More |
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Elizabeth Is Missing by Emma Healey Winner of the 2014 Debut Award Jun 2014. 320 Pages. Published by Harper. A sophisticated psychological mystery that is also an heartbreakingly honest meditation on memory, identity, and aging - an elderly woman descending into dementia embarks on a desperate quest to find the best friend she believes has disappeared, and her search for the truth will go back decades and have shattering consequences. More |
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My Family and Other Superheroes by Jonathan Edwards Winner of the 2014 Poetry Award Apr 2014. 64 Pages. Published by Seren. Leaping from the pages, jostling for position alongside the Valleys mams, dads, and bamps, and described with great warmth, the superheroes in question are a motley crew: Evel Knievel, Sophia Loren, Ian Rush, Marty McFly, a bicycling nun, and a recalcitrant hippo. Other poems focus on the crammed terraces and abandoned high streets where a working-class and Welsh nationalist politics is hammered out. This is a postindustrial valleys upbringing re-imagined through the prism of pop culture and surrealism. More |
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Five Children on the Western Front by Kate Saunders Winner of the 2014 Children's Book Award Published by Faber & Faber in the UK. Not yet available in the USA. A heart-wrenching sequel to E. Nesbit's Five Children and It, set on the eve of the First World War. The five children have grown up - war will change their lives for ever. |
