Costa Book Awards 2019

To find out more about the shortlisted books just click on the award category you are interested in.

Costa First Novel Award 2019

Costa Novel Award 2019

Costa Biography Award 2019

Costa Poetry Award 2019

Costa Children's Book Award 2019

Winner of Costa Book of the Year: The Volunteer

Winner of the 2019 Biography Award and Costa Book of the Year.

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Costa First Novel Award 2019

Winner: The Confessions of Frannie Langton

The Old Bailey, 1826 and Frannie Langton stands in court accused of the brutal murder of her former master and mistress. But “there was love between me and her”, she tells the court as she relates her story from 1812, when she worked at Paradise plantation, Jamaica. With the skills of reading and writing “packed inside” her, &...

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Shortlisted Books

Costa Novel Award 2019

Winner: Middle England

The country is changing and, up and down the land, cracks are appearing - within families and between generations. In the Midlands Benjamin Trotter tries to help his aged father navigate a Britain that seems to have forgotten he exists, while in London his friend Doug doesn't understand why his teenage daughter is eternally enraged. Meanwhile, newlyweds Sophie and Ian ...

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Shortlisted Books

Confession with Blue Horses

Sophie Hardach

Starling Days

Rowan Hisayo Buchanan

Shadowplay

Joseph O'Connor

Costa Biography Award 2019

Winner of Costa Book of the Year: The Volunteer

Winner of the 2019 Biography Award and Costa Book of the Year.

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Shortlisted Books

On Chapel Sands My mother and other missing persons

Laura Cumming

In Extremis

Lindsey Hilsum

The Making of Poetry

Adam Nicolson

Costa Poetry Award 2019

Winner: Flèche

POETRY BOOK SOCIETY RECOMMENDATION Flèche (the French word for 'arrow') is an offensive technique commonly used in fencing, a sport of Mary Jean Chan's young adult years, when she competed locally and internationally for her home city, Hong Kong. This cross-linguistic pun presents the queer, non-white body as both vulnerable ('flesh') and weaponised ('fleche'), and evokes the difficulties ...

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Shortlisted Books

The Mizzy

Paul Farley

Surge

Jay Bernard

Reckless Paper Birds

John McCullough

Costa Children's Book Award 2019

Winner: Asha & the Spirit Bird

Shortlisted for the Costa Children's Book Award 2019 Rich in drama, and suffused in the spirituality and atmosphere of the author’s native Northern Punjab, Jasbinder Bilan’s debut is a delightful, hope-bathed treat for 9+ year-olds. With money tight, Asha’s father has gone to the big city to work ...

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