David
15th February 2007, 04:26 PM
The cached discussion:
Hazel 10th January 2007 01:05 PM
Costa (nee Whitbread) Book Awards 2006
Costa Book Awards 2006 Category Winners Announced
Posted at 8:33AM Wednesday 10th January 2007 by b2b newsdesk
From BookTradeNews
The five successful authors who will now contest for the Costa
Book of the Year are:
· William Boyd who, after winning the First Novel Award in 1981 for A Good Man in Africa, returns 25 years later to claim the Novel Award for Restless
· Former film-maker Stef Penney wins the First Novel Award for The Tenderness of Wolves, a murder mystery set in the snowy peaks of Canada, a country she has never visited
· Brian Thompson wins the Biography Award for Keeping Mum, a witty account of his own childhood which the judges called "the perfect antidote to the 'misery memoir'"
· John Haynes beats Seamus Heaney to take the 2006 Poetry Award for Letter to Patience, set in a small mud-walled bar in northern Nigeria at a time of political unrest
· Linda Newbery, a former Whitbread Book of the Year judge, triumphs in the Children's Book Award category with Set in Stone
The five Costa Book Award winners, each of whom will receive £5,000, were selected from 580 entries, the highest total ever received in one year. The five books are now eligible for the ultimate prize - the 2006 Costa Book of the Year.
The winner will be announced at the Grosvenor House Hotel in central London on Wednesday 7th February 2007 by a panel of judges chaired by the comedy writer and director, Armando Iannucci.
I haven't read any of these but it will be interesting to see if Boyd's inclusion i the R&J Bookclub will swing anything his way. How many will rush out to buy his chosen book and his new one...?
And how many authors would want a "Costa coffee" sticker on their books?
Grammath 10th January 2007 05:08 PM
I haven't read any of these, as usual. For that matter, I haven't read anything that was on any of the category shortlists either.
What I would say is in my experience, I have found winning a Whitbread award is a more reliable indicator of a book's quality than the Booker, although they gave "Vernon God Little" the first novel gong, so they are prone to mistakes too.
Flingo 14th January 2007 08:13 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazel
And how many authors would want a "Costa coffee" sticker on their books?
There was interesting article by a previous Whitbread winner on one of the newspaper blogs earlier this week (I can't remember which one!) discussing this exact point. He felt he wouldn't want it.
That said, we stopped at the Watford Gap services on the M1 on Friday night and had a tea in the Costa there. They had promotional cubes on the tables featuring the winners of each category and the chance to buy a book for a quid with a sample from each. I sat and looked around and on every table that was occupied someone picked up the cube and made a comment to their companions. I think the association between books and coffee is much stronger than that of books and beer, and Costa are obviously going to get the visibility now.
Mungus 14th January 2007 08:22 PM
William Boyd's novel, Restless, is getting lots of good press and is a Richard and Judy selection too. This probably explains why Amazon have it at £3.99 at the moment. I've read his work in the past and was a big fan until he published something I didn't like (can't recall which novel) and I've avoided him since. I think I might give Restless a go though.
Hazel 10th January 2007 01:05 PM
Costa (nee Whitbread) Book Awards 2006
Costa Book Awards 2006 Category Winners Announced
Posted at 8:33AM Wednesday 10th January 2007 by b2b newsdesk
From BookTradeNews
The five successful authors who will now contest for the Costa
Book of the Year are:
· William Boyd who, after winning the First Novel Award in 1981 for A Good Man in Africa, returns 25 years later to claim the Novel Award for Restless
· Former film-maker Stef Penney wins the First Novel Award for The Tenderness of Wolves, a murder mystery set in the snowy peaks of Canada, a country she has never visited
· Brian Thompson wins the Biography Award for Keeping Mum, a witty account of his own childhood which the judges called "the perfect antidote to the 'misery memoir'"
· John Haynes beats Seamus Heaney to take the 2006 Poetry Award for Letter to Patience, set in a small mud-walled bar in northern Nigeria at a time of political unrest
· Linda Newbery, a former Whitbread Book of the Year judge, triumphs in the Children's Book Award category with Set in Stone
The five Costa Book Award winners, each of whom will receive £5,000, were selected from 580 entries, the highest total ever received in one year. The five books are now eligible for the ultimate prize - the 2006 Costa Book of the Year.
The winner will be announced at the Grosvenor House Hotel in central London on Wednesday 7th February 2007 by a panel of judges chaired by the comedy writer and director, Armando Iannucci.
I haven't read any of these but it will be interesting to see if Boyd's inclusion i the R&J Bookclub will swing anything his way. How many will rush out to buy his chosen book and his new one...?
And how many authors would want a "Costa coffee" sticker on their books?
Grammath 10th January 2007 05:08 PM
I haven't read any of these, as usual. For that matter, I haven't read anything that was on any of the category shortlists either.
What I would say is in my experience, I have found winning a Whitbread award is a more reliable indicator of a book's quality than the Booker, although they gave "Vernon God Little" the first novel gong, so they are prone to mistakes too.
Flingo 14th January 2007 08:13 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazel
And how many authors would want a "Costa coffee" sticker on their books?
There was interesting article by a previous Whitbread winner on one of the newspaper blogs earlier this week (I can't remember which one!) discussing this exact point. He felt he wouldn't want it.
That said, we stopped at the Watford Gap services on the M1 on Friday night and had a tea in the Costa there. They had promotional cubes on the tables featuring the winners of each category and the chance to buy a book for a quid with a sample from each. I sat and looked around and on every table that was occupied someone picked up the cube and made a comment to their companions. I think the association between books and coffee is much stronger than that of books and beer, and Costa are obviously going to get the visibility now.
Mungus 14th January 2007 08:22 PM
William Boyd's novel, Restless, is getting lots of good press and is a Richard and Judy selection too. This probably explains why Amazon have it at £3.99 at the moment. I've read his work in the past and was a big fan until he published something I didn't like (can't recall which novel) and I've avoided him since. I think I might give Restless a go though.