Costa Book Awards

The Costa Book Awards, formally known as The Whitbread Literary Awards, until Costa took on the sponsorship of the event from 1996, is well known on the literary circuit. There are five categories in the Costa Book Awards - Novel, First Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children’s Book. The category winners were announced earlier this year, and each receive five thousand pounds. Of these five, an overall winner is chosen and given the title of Costa Book of the Year 2010, a further thirty thousand pounds as well as the recognition and sales that will no doubt, come with winning the award.

Category Winners:

Costa Novel Award: Maggie O’Farrell - The Hand That First Held Mine

Costa First Novel Award: Kishwar Desai - Witness the Night

Costa Biography Award: Edmund de Waal - The Hare With Amber Eyes

Costa Poetry Award: Jo Shapcott - Of Mutability

Costa Children’s Book Award: Jason Wallace - Out of Shadows

I had the pleasure of attending the event to announce the overall winner that was held at Qualglino’s restaurant, on a little street tucked away off Piccadilly in central London. When I arrived, a couple of paparazzi had already taken up position outside the doors. The venue’s normal layout had been cleared away to be replaced with a scattering of neat, tall tables, a stage at the far end of the main area and the Costa brand prominently displayed for everyone to see. There were an entourage of professional photographers with bucket loads of equipment and plenty of media people whizzing around with press badges and clipboards to and from the press room.

It was a fairly intimate venue which filled up nicely as the guests began trickling in, posing for photos. It was not hard to do a little celebrity spotting, Ester Rantzen, Ian Hislop, Lorraine Kelly who was one of the Children’s Book judges, to name but a few. People looked very familiar, yet I couldn’t tell where I knew them from. I did notice a couple of the event assistant’s clipboards with pictures of the celebrities on the guest list, like something out of The Devil Wears Prada. Among a sea of ubiquitous black outfits, mine included, it was easy to pick out the more interestingly dressed. Novel category winner, Maggie O’Farrell, was wearing a contemporary geometric dress whereas Kishwar Desai, winner of the First Novel category, came to the event in an equally stunning, traditional pink and gold embroidered Indian sari.

The drinks flowed continuously and were served by smartly dressed waiters; Champagne, wine – red or white, elderflower and soda or how about a flat white from the brand spanking new travel coffee cart placed in the main room. I sampled the various beverages on offer, it would be rude not to. Floating among the guests were more waiters carrying trays of little canapés - beef carpaccio and shrimp served in oriental spoons, oysters, mozzarella & tomato sticks with a pesto dipping sauce, mini cheese burgers on giant cocktail sticks and, my favorite, a mini cone of fish and chips, how cute!

The ceremony started just after eight o'clock and was hosted by Penny Smith of GMTV fame. A great personality to choose as the host and was among my chosen best dressed due to her fantastic pair of red sequined heels, reminiscent of a modern, glam version of The Wizard of Oz. She went through other short listed authors from each category and a short video from each winning author, who were all at the event to receive their prize from their respective category judge.

The judging panel for the overall winner included judges from each category and was headed up by publisher and broadcaster, Andrew Neil. He introduced Managing Director of Costa, John Derkach, to announce Of Mutability, a collection of poems, by Jo Shapcott as Costa Book of the Year 2010. After the final announcement, Jo Shapcott was whisked away to the media room for what I can only imagine will be an onslaught of interviews and photo calls for the next few days. In the final half hour or so, the drinks kept coming as did trays of mini desserts with a delicious summer fruit meringue and a very indulgent mocha mousse.

I’m not much of a poetry reader but now that a poetry book has won this award a second year running, I am intrigued to read Jo Shapcott’s book and the story she tells though her poems. Winning books are selected if they are ‘well written, enjoyable books that the judges would recommend to anyone to read.’ As this criteria is highly subjective, I can see why it was a tough decision for the judges. I’m looking forward to reading all the five category winners and to ‘…wallow in the joy of excellent literature,’ as Andrew Neil so eloquently put.

For more info, photos and video of the event go to www.costabookawards.com.