Press
Press Release
11/24/2009
Costa Book Awards 2009 Shortlists Announced
* Highest-ever number of entries to the Novel category (155)
* For
the first time, shortlists feature two posthumous nominations; Simon Gray for
Biography and Siobhan Dowd in the Childrens Book Award category
* Novel Award
shortlist features 2009 Man Booker winner Hilary Mantel and literary
heavy-weights Colm Toibin and Penelope Lively
* First Novel category features
a former scooter salesman and librarian
* Debut poet, Katharine Kilalea,
pitted against Clive James, Ruth Padel and Christopher Reid in the Poetry
category
19.30pm, Tuesday 24th November, London: Costa, the UK's fastest-growing
coffee shop chain, today announces the shortlists for the 2009 Costa Book
Awards.
The Costa Book Awards recognise the most enjoyable books in five
categories - First Novel, Novel, Biography, Poetry and Childrens Book -
published in the last year by writers based in the UK and Ireland.
Originally established in 1971 by Whitbread Plc, Costa announced its takeover
of the sponsorship of the UK's most prestigious book prize in 2006.
This
years Costa Book Awards attracted 592 entries - the second highest-ever
number of submissions in one year. Judges on this year's panels (three per
category) included actor and writer Neil Pearson; broadcaster and journalist
Fiona Phillips; authors Sandra Howard and Sophie Hannah; writers William
Nicholson and Ben Macintyre; and biographer and historian, Robert
Lacey.
Winners in the five categories, who each receive £5,000, will be
announced on Tuesday 5th January 2010. The overall winner of the Costa
Book of the Year 2009 will receive £25,000 and will be selected and announced at
the Costa Book Awards ceremony in central London on Tuesday 26th January 2010.
Since the introduction of the Book of the Year award in 1985, it has been won
nine times by a novel, four times by a first novel, five times by a biography,
five times by a collection of poetry and once by a childrens book. The
2008 Costa Book of the Year was won by Sebastian Barry for The Secret
Scripture.
To be eligible for the 2009 Costa Book Awards, books must have been first
published in the UK or Ireland between 1 November 2008 and 31 October 2009.
Full details of the shortlists follow.
For further press information, author pictures, author interview bids or book
jacket images, please contact:
Amanda Johnson
Costa Book Awards Press and Publicity
Telephone: 020
7751 2085 (direct line) or 07715 922 180 (mobile)
Email: amanda@amandajohnsonpr.com
COSTA BOOK AWARDS 2009 SHORTLISTS
2009 Costa Novel Award shortlist
Penelope Lively for Family
Album (Fig Tree)
Hilary Mantel for Wolf Hall (Fourth Estate)
Christopher
Nicholson for The Elephant Keeper (Fourth Estate)
Colm Toib?n for Brooklyn
(Viking)
2009 Costa First Novel Award shortlist
Rachel Heath for The
Finest Type of English Womanhood (Hutchinson)
Peter Murphy for John the
Revelator (Faber and Faber)
Raphael Selbourne for Beauty (Tindal Street
Press)
Ali Shaw for The Girl with Glass Feet (Atlantic Books)
2009 Costa Biography Award shortlist
Graham Farmelo for The
Strangest Man - The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius (Faber and
Faber)
William Fiennes for The Music Room (Picador)
Simon Gray for Coda
(Co-published by Granta Books and Faber and Faber)
Caroline Moorehead for
Dancing to the Precipice (Chatto & Windus)
2009 Costa Poetry Award shortlist
Clive James for Angels Over
Elsinore (Picador Poetry)
Katharine Kilalea for One Eyed Leigh
(Carcanet)
Ruth Padel for Darwin: A Life in Poems (Chatto &
Windus)
Christopher Reid for A Scattering (Arete Books)
2009 Costa Childrens Book Award shortlist
Siobhan Dowd for
Solace of the Road (David Fickling Books)
Mary Hoffman for Troubadour
(Bloomsbury)
Patrick Ness for The Ask and the Answer (Chaos Walking: Book
Two) (Walker Books)
Anna Perera for Guantanamo Boy (Puffin)
Shortlist for the 2009 Costa Novel Award
(155
entries)
Judges
Sarah Clarke Co-owner, The
Torbay Bookshop
Rebecca Jones Arts correspondent, BBC
Neil Pearson Actor and writer
Family Album by Penelope Lively (Fig Tree)
A big
shabby Victorian suburban house, the smell of raincoats and coq au vin in the
hall, the six mugs for the children slung from the kitchen dresser hooks: for
destructive Paul, difficult Gina, elegant Sandra, considerate Katie, clever
Roger and flighty Clare, Allersmead was the perfect place to grow up. But was
it? Now grown-up and off in different directions, one by one the children
return to Allersmead, to their home-making mother and aloof writer father and a
house that for years has played silent witness to the secrets of a family, and
one particular secret of which no one speaks?
Penelope Lively has written
many prize-winning novels for adults and children. They include: The Road To
Lichfield, According To Mark, Moon Tiger (which won the 1987 Booker Prize), Heat
Wave, Spiderweb, The Photograph, Making It Up and Consequences. Penelope Lively
lives in London.
Judges: "An acutely-studied and skilful dissection
of middle-class family life."
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (Fourth Estate)
Set in
England in the 1520s, Henry VIII is on the throne, but has no heir. Cardinal
Wolsey is his chief advisor, charged with securing the divorce the pope refuses
to grant. Into this atmosphere of distrust and need comes Thomas Cromwell, first
as Wolsey's clerk, and later his successor. Cromwell is a wholly original
man: the son of a brutal blacksmith, a political genius, a briber, a charmer, a
bully, a man with a delicate and deadly expertise in manipulating people and
events. Ruthless in pursuit of his own interests, he is as ambitious in his
wider politics as he is for himself. His reforming agenda is carried out in the
grip of a self-interested parliament and a king who fluctuates between romantic
passions and murderous rages. With a vast array of characters, and richly
overflowing with incident, Wolf Hall peels back history to show us Tudor England
as a half-made society, moulding itself with great passion and suffering and
courage.
Hilary Mantel is the author of eleven books, including A Place
of Greater Safety, Giving Up the Ghost and, most recently Beyond Black, which
was shortlisted for the 2006 Orange Prize.
Judges: "One of the
outstanding books of the year - historical fiction at its
best."
The Elephant Keeper by Christopher Nicholson (Fourth
Estate)
In the middle of the 18th century, a ship docks at
Bristol with an extraordinary cargo: two young elephants. Bought by a wealthy
landowner, they are taken to his estate in the English countryside. A stable
boy, Tom Page, is given the task of caring for them. The Elephant Keeper
is Toms account of his life with the elephants. As the years pass, and as they
journey across England, his relationship with the female elephant deepens in a
startling manner. Along the way they meet incredulity, distrust and tragedy, and
it is only their understanding of each other that keeps them
together.
Christopher Nicholson read English at Cambridge University. He
has been a community development worker in Cornwall, and a radio scriptwriter
and producer in London. He lives in Dorset.
Judges: "This is an
unusual and absorbing story - a real discovery."
Brooklyn by Colm Toib?n (Viking)
In a small town in
the south-east of Ireland in the 1950s, Eilis Lacey is one among many of her
generation who cannot find work at home. So when a job is offered in America, it
is clear that she must go. Leaving her family and home, Eilis sets off to forge
a new life for herself in Brooklyn. Young, homesick and alone, she gradually
buries the pain of parting beneath the rhythms of a new life - days at the till
in a large department store, night classes in Brooklyn College and Friday
evenings on the dance floor of the parish hall - until she realises that
she has found a sort of happiness. But when tragic news summons her back to
Ireland, and the constrictions of her old life unexpectedly give way to new
possibilities, she finds herself facing a terrible choice between love and
happiness in the land where she belongs and the promises she must keep on the
far side of the ocean.
Colm Toib?n was born in Ireland in 1955. He is
author of five other novels, including The Blackwater Lightship and The Master,
both of which were shortlisted for the Man Booker prize, and a collection of
stories, Mothers and Sons.
Judges: "A wonderfully-observed story of
love and loss."
Shortlist for the 2009 Costa First Novel Award
(102 entries)
Judges
Nikki Bedi Presenter,
BBC Asian Network
Sandra Howard Author
Matt Taylor
Owner, The Chepstow Bookshop
The Finest Type of English Womanhood by Rachel Heath
(Hutchinson)
Its 1946, and seventeen-year-old Laura Trelling is
stagnating in her dilapidated Sussex family home, while her quietly eccentric
parents slip further into isolation. Then she meets Paul Lovell - a
chance encounter that will change the course of her destiny, and bring her a new
life in pre-apartheid South Africa. Three years earlier, and many miles
north, sixteen-year-old Gay Gibson is no less desperate to escape England.
Gay's heart is set on stardom ... but first she must find a way out of
Birkenhead and the dreary prospect of secretarial college. When their
paths cross in Johannesburg, Laura is exposed to Gay's wild life of parties and
liaisons. Thrown together, each with their own agenda, the girls find
their lives inextricably entangled, with fatal consequences...
Rachel
Heath was born in Bristol in 1968. She now lives in Bath with her husband
and their three children.
Judges: "We loved this dark and gripping
story which merges fact and fiction so powerfully."
John the Revelator by Peter Murphy (Faber and
Faber)
A universal story of love, family and betrayal, John the
Revelator is narrated in the compelling voice of an introverted, watchful
adolescent, John Devine. Stuck in a small town, worried over by his single
mother - the chain-smoking, bible-quoting Lily - and the gregarious
but sinister Mrs Nagle, John yearns for escape. When Jamey Corboy, a self
styled Rimbaudian boy-wonder, arrives in town, Johns life suddenly fills with
possibilities - welcome and otherwise - and as he hides from the
reality of his mother's ever-worsening health, he is faced with a terrible
dilemma.
Peter Murphy is a senior writer for Dublin's Hot Press, and has
written for Rolling Stone and Music Week. He is also a regular guest on RTE's
arts review show The View, and has contributed liner notes to the forthcoming
re-mastered edition of the Anthology of American Folk Music. He lives in
Enniscorthy.
Judges: "An original and sensitive exploration of
adolescence - elegantly and beautifully written."
Beauty by Raphael Selbourne (Tindal Street
Press)
Beauty - in name and appearance - is a twenty-year-old
Bangladeshi, back in England having disgraced her family by fleeing an abusive
arranged marriage. Placed on the jobseeker's treadmill and under
continuing domestic pressure, in desperation she runs away. Her fractious
encounters with officialdom, fellow claimants and passers-by in the city
streets, exacerbated by the restrictions (and comfort) of her language and
culture, place her at the mercy of such unlikely helpers as Mark, a friendly
Staffordshire Bull Terrier-breeding ex-offender, and Peter, a middle-class
underachiever. Determined and spirited, yet tormented by doubts, Beauty is
forced to examine her own beliefs and think seriously about her future.
While her brothers search for her across the city, the conflict between her
desire for personal freedom and her sense of family duty deepens. What
will she do?
Raphael Selbourne was born in Oxford in 1968. He
lived in Italy for many years, where he worked variously as a teacher and
translator, sold television advertising and scooters, before moving to the West
Midlands in 2004.
Judges: "Captures the raw humanity of inner city
life with extraordinary authenticity."
The Girl with Glass Feet by Ali Shaw (Atlantic Books)
A mysterious and frightening metamorphosis has befallen Ida
MacLaird - she is slowly turning into glass, from the feet up. She returns
to St Hauda's Land where she believes the glass first took hold, in the vain
hope of finding the one man who might just be able to cure her... Midas
Crook is a young loner, who has lived on islands his entire life. When he meets
Ida, something about her sad, defiant spirit pierces his emotional defences. As
Midas helps Ida come to terms with her affliction, she gradually unpicks the
knots of his heart, and they begin to fall in love... What they need
most is time - and time is slipping away fast. Will they find a way to
stave off the spread of the glass?
Ali Shaw was born in 1982 and grew up
in a small town in Dorset. He graduated from Lancaster University with a first
class degree in English Literature and has since worked as a bookseller and at
Oxford's Bodleian Library. He is currently writing his second novel.
Judges: "This beautiful book captured our imagination, exquisitely
blending reality and fantasy."
Shortlist for the 2009 Costa Biography Award
(133
entries)
Judges
Robert Lacey
Biographer and historian
Ben Macintyre
Writer and journalist
Caroline Mileham
Head of Books, PLAY.com
The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius by
Graham Farmelo (Faber and Faber)
The greatest British physicist
since Newton, Paul Dirac was a pioneer of quantum mechanics and was regarded as
an equal by Albert Einstein. He predicted, purely from what he saw in his
equations, the existence of antimatter. One of the youngest theoreticians to win
the Nobel Prize for Physics, he was also pathologically reticent, strangely
literal-minded and almost completely unable to communicate or empathise. Based
on a previously undiscovered archive of family papers in Florida, Graham Farmelo
celebrates Dirac's massive scientific achievement while drawing a compassionate
portrait of his life and the people around him.
Graham Farmelo is Senior
Research Fellow at the Science Museum, London, and Adjunct Professor of Physics
at Northeastern University, Boston, USA. Formerly a theoretical physicist, he is
now an international consultant in science communication. He edited the
best-selling It Must be Beautiful: Great Equations of Modern Science in 2002. He
lives in London.
Judges: "Moving, funny, sad and intensely readable,
this is a fascinating insight into the psychology of genius."
The Music Room by William Fiennes (Picador)
Fiennes
spent his childhood in a magical place, a moated castle: the perfect
environment for a child with a brimming imagination. It is a house alive
with history and beauty, but the young boy growing up there is equally in awe of
his brother Richard. Eleven years older and a magnetic presence, Richard
suffers from a severe form of epilepsy. His energy influences the rhythms
of the family and the house's internal life, and his story inspires a journey,
interwoven with loving recollection, towards an understanding of the
mind. This is a song of home, of an adored brother and of the
miracle of consciousness.
William Fiennes is the author of The
Snow Geese, which won the 2003 Hawthornden Prize and was shortlisted for the
2002 Samuel Johnson Prize. He is the recipient of the Somerset Maugham
Award and was Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. He is Director and
co-founder of the charity First Story, which supports creativity and literacy in
challenging secondary schools. William Fiennes lives in London.
Judges: "A beautifully-written evocation of place, loss and
family."
Coda by Simon Gray (co-published by Granta and Faber and
Faber)
Coda is a candid account of life following a diagnosis of
cancer and a limited life expectancy. Writing during a holiday with his
wife in Crete, Gray recalls the scans and consultations that have dominated the
previous months while offering portraits of fellow tourists and digressions on
everything from lying to the maitre d' and concerns about tipping; from crimes
of passion to his new-found obsession with obituaries. Despite the
bleak prognosis, Simon's dark humour about the encounters with his medical team
is as funny as it is heart-rending.
Simon Gray was born in 1936.
He was the author of over thirty plays, several novels and eight memoirs,
including The Smoking Diaries trilogy and was appointed CBE in 2005 for services
to drama and literature. Simon died of a ruptured aneurysm in August
2008.
Judges: "Black humour with the lightest touch."
Dancing to the Precipice by Caroline Moorehead (Chatto &
Windus)
Lucie de la Tour du Pin was the Pepys of her
generation. Born Lucie Dillon to a half-French mother and an Anglo-Irish
father, her world was Versailles and the court of Louis XVI and Marie
Antoinette. Repeatedly in the right place at the right time, Lucie
saw the Battle of Waterloo, the fall of Napoleon and the return of Louis XVIII,
and the Restoration. Her friends included Wellington, Lafayette, Alexander
Hamilton, Talleyrand and Madame de Stael. She died, aged 83, in Pisa.
Mixing politics and court intrigue, social observation and everyday details
about food, work, illness, children, manners and clothes, Moorehead paints a
vivid and memorable portrait of an era - lasting three-quarters of a century -
that saw the fortunes of France, as well as those of Lucie herself, rise and
fall and rise again.
Caroline Moorehead is the biographer of Bertrand
Russell, Freya Stark, Iris Origo and Martha Gellhorn. Well known for her work in
human rights, she has published a history of the Red Cross and a book about
refugees, Human Cargo. She lives in London and Italy. Fluent in French and
Italian, her research for this book uncovered letters, documents and portraits,
many never previously examined.
Judges: "An exemplary biography of an
extraordinary woman."
Shortlist for the 2009 Costa Poetry Award
(100
entries)
Judges
Chloe Garner Director,
Ledbury Poetry Festival
Sophie Hannah Crime Fiction
Writer and Poet
Tom Fleming Deputy Editor, Literary
Review
Angels Over Elsinore by Clive James (Picador
Poetry)
From reminiscences of his Australian childhood and
elegies for friends and family to hilarious observations on the 21st century and
reflections on art, metaphysics, science and faith, Angels Over Elsinore is
simultaneously witty, passionate and provocative. Fired by the same
energy, rigorous intelligence and mastery of language as his prose, this
collection displays a breathtaking range of form, subject matter and
mood.
Clive James was born in Sydney in 1939 and is the author of more
than thirty books. As well as verse and his four volumes of autobiography, he
has published collections of literary criticism, television criticism, travel
writing and novels. As a television presenter and performer, he has
appeared regularly for both the BBC and ITV, most notably as writer and
presenter of the Postcard series of travel documentaries. In 1992 he was made a
Member of the Order of Australia and in 2003 he was awarded the Philip Hodgins
memorial medal for literature.
Judges: "Beautifully written,
intelligent, full of ideas clearly communicated and feelings perfectly
encapsulated - these are proper poems with musical structure that are
clever, moving and memorable."
One Eyed Leigh by Katharine Kilalea (Carcanet)
One
Eyed Leigh is a book of portraits, experiments and objects made of words.
They find their locations between Cape Town and London, between the dawn of the
new millennium and the present day. Guided by a biological thread, in this
first collection, Kilalea borrows the techniques of a craftsman to transform
material into new shapes; an artist's concentrated gaze at the very particular
subject in her portrait poems; an embroiderers delicate craft of stitching to
create a paced poetry, meticulous in detail.
Katharine
Kilalea was born in South Africa and moved to London in 2005 to study for an MA
in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. She has received an
Arts Council Award for poetry and her poems have appeared in a variety of
journals. Katharine lives and works in London.
Judges: "A humorous,
unpredictable and imaginative debut. Kilalea makes deceptively
well-crafted poems that are like sculptures."
Darwin: A Life in Poems by Ruth Padel (Chatto &
Windus)
An intimate and moving interpretation of the life and
works of Charles Darwin by Ruth Padel, acclaimed poet and a direct descendant of
the famous scientist. In this extraordinary sequence of poems, using
multiple viewpoints, Padel follows the development of Darwins thought, the drama
of the discovery of evolution, and fluctuating emotions in Darwin the husband,
the naturalist and the tender father, in a powerful tribute to her
forebear.
Ruth Padel is a prize-winning poet, Fellow of the Royal
Society of Literature and Fellow of the Zoological Society of London. She
has written seven poetry collections, including Voodoo Shop and The Soho
Leopard, both shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Her travel book,
Tigers in Red Weather, was highly acclaimed and she is also well-known for her
popular works of poetry criticism. Her awards include First Prize in the
National Poetry Competition, a Cholmeley Award from the Society of Authors and
an Arts Council of England Writers' Award.
Judges: "A fascinating and
original work that recreates the life of its subject in rich, diverse
language."
A Scattering by Christopher Reid (Arete
Books)
Lucinda Gane, Christopher Reids wife, died in October
2005. A Scattering is his tribute to her and consists of four poetic sequences,
the first written during her final illness, and the other three at intervals
after her death.
Christopher Reid received the Somerset Maugham Award and
the Hawthornden Prize for his first collection, Arcadia, a Chomondeley Award in
1995, and the 2000 Signal Poetry Award for his children's collection. He
has twice been nominated for the Whitbread Awards. His edition of Letters of Ted
Hughes appeared in 2007.
Judges: "A life-affirming collection, full
of urgency and feeling."
Shortlist for the 2009 Costa Childrens Book Award
(102 entries)
Judges
William Nicholson Writer
Fiona Phillips Broadcaster and journalist
Sue
Steel Co-owner, Simply Books
Solace of the Road by Siobhan Dowd (David Fickling
Books)
Holly is done with social workers and key workers and
secure units, shes done with reviews and rules and reports and shes done with
her foster parents. Shes ditching her old life as Holly Hogan and shes
heading off. She puts on her blonde wig, blows herself a kiss and flutters
her eyelashes. And now shes ready. She's Solace, Solace of the road,
and she's going to find her mam.
Siobhan Dowd lived in Oxford with
her husband Geoff before tragically dying from cancer in August 2007, aged 47.
Solace of the Road is her fourth novel for David Fickling Books. Her first
novel, A Swift Pure Cry, won the 2007 Branford Boase Award and Eilis Dillon
Award. The London Eye Mystery won the Bisto Book of the Year Award, and
the 2007 NASEN and TES Special Educational Needs Childrens Book Award. All
royalties from her books go to the Siobhan Dowd Trust, a charity set up to
support the joy of reading for disadvantaged young people.
Judges:
"We were captivated by this beautifully-written, poignant and ultimately
heart-warming story."
Troubadour by Mary Hoffman (Bloomsbury)
Elinor is in
love with Bertran, a troubadour. But her parents will not hear of the
match and Elinor is to be betrothed to an elderly nobleman. Facing the
prospect of a loveless union, she flees her castle to find Bertran... Bertran
has been the unlucky witness of a brutal murder for which the Pope will seek a
terrible revenge. It is Bertran's duty to warn his fellow heretics that
their lands are likely to be forfeit and that Southern France is on the eve of a
terrible war... Elinor and Bertran are to meet again as they find
themselves enveloped in a rising tide of bloodshed that threatens the very
fabric of their society.
Mary Hoffman is an acclaimed childrens author
and critic. She is the author of the internationally bestselling picture book
Amazing Grace. Her Stravaganza sequence for Bloomsbury has its own fan forum and
the latest, Stravaganza - City of Secrets, was longlisted for the Carnegie
Medal and The Falconers Knot was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction
Award. Mary lives in West Oxfordshire with her husband and has three
grown-up daughters.
Judges: "We loved this terrific historical
adventure story with its passionate and gutsy
heroine."
The Ask and the Answer (Chaos Walking: Book
Two) by Patrick Ness (Walker Books)
Fleeing before a relentless
army, Todd has carried a desperately wounded Viola right into the hands of their
worst enemy, Mayor Prentiss. Immediately separated from Viola and
imprisoned, Todd is forced to learn the ways of the Mayors new order. But
what secrets are hiding just outside of the town? And where is Viola? Is she
even alive? And who are the mysterious Answer? And then, one day, the bombs
begin to explode...
Patrick Ness is the author of The Knife of Never
Letting Go, Book One of the Chaos Walking trilogy which won the 2008 Guardian
Childrens Fiction Prize and was shortlisted for the BookTrust Teenage
Prize. He has written two other books for adults and is a literary critic
for the Guardian. He lives in London.
Judges: "A strikingly original
and compelling work."
Guantanamo Boy by Anna Perera
(Puffin)
Fifteen-year-old Khalid likes seeing his friends,
playing football down the park, the normal things. He isn't too excited
about going to visit his family in Pakistan, but his mum and dad want him to
come with them. So he goes. And a living nightmare begins. Khalid is
kidnapped and forced to go to a place no teenager should ever see. A place
where torture and terror are the normal things. Somewhere he doesn't know
if he will ever escape from. A place called Guantanamo Bay.
Anna
Perera was born in London to an Irish mother and Sri Lankan father. She
qualified as a teacher and worked in secondary schools in London before becoming
responsible for a unit for excluded boys. After marrying Dire Straits
founding member David Knopfler, she gained an MA in Writing for Children at
Winchester University and has subsequently had four childrens books
published. She learnt about the plight of children held at Guantanamo Bay
at a benefit event held by human rights charity Reprieve. She lives in
Hampshire, UK.
Judges: "An important and moving story of an ordinary
teenage boy innocently caught up in a modern-day nightmare which exposes the
shortcomings of contemporary justice."
-ENDS-
Notes for Editors:
About the Costa Book Awards:
* The Costa Book
Awards, formerly the Whitbread Book Awards, were established in 1971 to
encourage, promote and celebrate the best contemporary British writing.
* The
total prize fund for the Costa Book Awards stands at ?50,000. The award winners
from the five
* categories - Novel, First Novel, Biography, Poetry and
Childrens Book - each receive £5,000.
* The overall Costa Book of the Year is
selected from the five category Award winners with the winner receiving a
further £25,000.
* The winner will be announced at the awards ceremony
hosted in central London on 26th January, 2010.
* To be eligible for the 2009
awards, books must have been first published in the UK or Ireland between 1
November 2008 and 31 October 2009.
* The 2009 winner of the Costa Book of the
Year was Sebastian Barry for The Secret Scripture (Faber and Faber).
* Since
winning the Book of the Year, The Secret Scripture has gone on to sell over
300,000 copies and has become the fastest-selling book in the history of Faber
and Faber.
About Costa:
* Costa was founded by Italian brothers
Sergio and Bruno Costa in 1971.
* Costa Coffee was the first UK coffee shop
chain to commit sourcing beans from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms.
* Costas in-store baristas are all coached in the art of coffee making at
the companys unique Costa Coffee Academy based at its own roastery in Lambeth,
London.
* The Costa Foundation was set up in 2006 to give something back to
the communities within the countries from which Costa sources its coffee
beans. The Costa Foundation works with an independent charity partner,
Charities Trust, and is operating under the auspices of Charities Trusts
registered charity number 327489.
* Costa is part of the Whitbread family of
brands.
* For more information, please go to http://www.costa.co.uk
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