BY JAMES SIMONS
Suspense is very high for tonight’s star studded event in central London for The Costa Book Awards, the annual event that recognizes excellent authors. Gothic horror, hailed by Judges as close to perfect, is a front runner for the 2015 Costa Book of the Year after wining the Costa first award.
There are four further categories in the running for the overall book of the
Former teacher and librarian Andrew Michael Hurley’s is a strong débutante this year, whose writing skills and imaginative competence was hailed last month when the winners of the novel, biography, poetry and children’s book categories were also announced.
Kate Atkinson is also a useful contender, having won the Costa novel award twice in three years. Her ninth book, A God In Ruins, is the companion novel to Life After Life, which won the 2013 award and has been described as ”utterly magnificent” and in a class of its own-full of poignancy, sympathy and innovation. Historian and writer Andrea Wulf, who prevailed in the Costa biography category for The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander Von Humboldt, The Lost Hero of Science, is also a potentially formidable force in this competitive awards.
The Costa First Novel Award for the ‘first novel’ went to Andrew Michael Hurley, having written an uncanny Gothic debut set on the Lancashire coast. The Loney was first published in 2014 as a limited edition by independent Tartarus Press, before being re-released by John Murray this year.
Scottish poet, writer and musician Don Paterson won the Costa poetry award for 40 Sonnets, his latest collection.
The Costa Book Awards is the only major UK book prize that is open solely to authors resident in the UK and Ireland.
It also, uniquely, recognizes books across five categories published in the last year.
The 2014 Costa Book of the Year was H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald, winner of the biography category for that year.
Each winner received £5,000, but all 5 will tonight compete for an extra £30,000 for the overall Costa Book Awards of the year