The category winners of the Costa Book Awards have been announced:
Novel: Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
First Novel: The Innocents by Francesca Segal
Biography: Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes by Mary M. Talbot and Bryan Talbot
Poetry: The Overhaul by Kathleen Jamie
Children’s Book: Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner
There are a couple of notable firsts for the Costas here: a graphic novel (Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes) taking one of the prizes, and an all-female roster of winning writers (Bryan Talbot being the illustrator of the biography).
Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes actually looks like the winner I’m most interested in investigating – graphic novels are a gap in my reading diet, and this could be a good title with which to start changing that.
3rd January 2013 at 12:04 pm
Another graphic novel, Days of the Bagnold Summer by Joff Winterhart, was shortlisted for the novel award and is well worth a read.
3rd January 2013 at 3:13 pm
Hi David, I borrowed Dotter of her Father’s Eyes and Days of the Bagnold Summer from the library yesterday and read Dotter in one sitting last night. Quite an emotional story and beautifully illustrated. I’m sure Bring up the Bodies is a great book, I certainly loved Wolf Hall, but it would be great for something else to get a look in for the overall prize. Sarah