2019 Costa Book Award Shortlists Announced
Published on 27th November 2019
Joseph O’Connor has been shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award for Shadowplay, a week after winning the Irish Novel of the Year award for his biographical fiction based on the life of Dracula creator Bram Stoker. His rivals for the £5,000 prize, whose winner will be announced on January 6th, are Middle England by Jonathan Coe; Confession with Blue Horses by Sophie Hardach; and Starling Days by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan.This year’s judges include novelist John Boyne author Clare Mackintosh and writers Kate Clanchy, Bali Rai and Mahsuda Snaith; historian, author and broadcaster, Prof Suzannah Lipscomb; and poet, critic and songwriter Jade Cuttle. The overall winner of the 2019 Costa Book of the Year will receive £30,000 and be selected and announced at the Costa Book Awards ceremony in central London on Tuesday 28th January 2020. The 2018 Costa Book of the Year was The Cut Out Girl, a story of war and family, lost and found by Oxford Professor Bart van Es.
Launched in 1971, the Costa Book Awards is one of the UK's most prestigious and popular book prizes and celebrates the most enjoyable books of the year by writers resident in the UK and Ireland.Uniquely, the prize has five categories – First Novel, Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children’s Book.
BorrowBox is available from your local library, online or as an app you can download to your smartphone or mobile device. It allows you to borrow either eaudio or ebooks from your local library any time of day from anywhere, links provided below.
COSTA BOOK AWARDS 2019 SHORTLISTS (with links to our catalogue)
2019 Costa First Novel Award shortlist
Diary of a Somebody by Brian Bilston (Picador) eBook/eAudiobook
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams (Trapeze)
The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins (Viking) eBook
The Other Half of Augusta Hope by Joanna Glen (The Borough Press) eBook
2019 Costa Novel Award shortlist
Middle England by Jonathan Coe (Viking)
Confession with Blue Horses by Sophie Hardach (Head of Zeus) eBook
Starling Days by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan (Sceptre)
Shadowplay by Joseph O’Connor (Harvill Secker) eBook
2019 Costa Biography Award shortlist
On Chapel Sands: My mother and other missing persons by Laura Cumming (Chatto & Windus)
The Volunteer: The True Story of the Resistance Hero who Infiltrated Auschwitz by Jack Fairweather (WH Allen) eBook
In Extremis: The Life of War Correspondent Marie Colvin by Lindsey Hilsum (Chatto & Windus)
The Making of Poetry: Coleridge, the Wordsworths and Their Year of Marvels by Adam Nicolson (William Collins) eBook/eAudiobook
2019 Costa Poetry Award shortlist
Surge by Jay Bernard (Chatto & Windus) eBook
Flèche by Mary Jean Chan (Faber & Faber)
The Mizzy by Paul Farley (Picador)
Reckless Paper Birds by John McCullough (Penned in the Margins)
2019 Costa Children’s Award shortlist
Asha & the Spirit Bird by Jasbinder Bilan (Chicken House) eBook
Crossfire by Malorie Blackman (Penguin Books)
In the Shadow of Heroes by Nicholas Bowling (Chicken House) eBook
Furious Thing by Jenny Downham (David Fickling Books)