One winner is selected in each of the five categories - Novel, First Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children's Book. Each category-winning author receives £5,000.
This year's Category Award Winners are:
2009 Costa Novel Award Winner
Colm Toibin - Brooklyn
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Judges: "Poised, quiet and incrementally shattering - we all loved this book and can't praise it highly enough."
2009 Costa First Novel Award Winner
Raphael Selbourne - Beauty
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Judges: "Pitch perfect on every level - we loved this book."
2009 Costa Biography Award Winner
Graham Farmelo - The Strangest Man
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Judges: "The extraordinary mind and achievements of Britain's Einstein are rendered here in the most compelling biography of the year."
2009 Costa Poetry Award Winner
Christopher Reid- A Scattering
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Judges: "Intensely moving, compelling and honest - this is a highly readable collection of wonderful poems."
2009 Costa Children's Book Award Winner
Patrick Ness - The Ask and the Answer (Chaos Walking, Book Two)
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Judges: "From the first word, we were gripped by this dazzlingly-imagined, morally complex, compulsively-plotted tale. We are convinced that this is a major achievement in the making."
To see last year's Category Award Winners, click here.