2006 Costa Awards for Literature

THE SHORTLISTS for the 2006 Costa Awards for Literature (formerly known as the Whitbread Awards) have been announced and they are as follows:

Best Novel
Restless (Bloomsbury) / William Boyd
Saving Caravaggio (Viking) / Neil Griffiths
A Spot of Bother (Jonathan Cape) / Mark Haddon
Black Swan Green (Sceptre) / David Mitchell

First Novel
The Meaning of Night (John Murray) / Michael Cox
Cloth Girl (Little, Brown) / Marilyn Heward Mills
The Tenderness of Wolves (Quercus) / Stef Penney
The Amnesia Clinic (Harvill Secker) / James Scudamore

Biography
George Mackay Brown: The Life (John Murray) / Maggie Fergusson
Donne: A Reformed Soul (Viking)/ John Stubbs
Nabeel’s Song (Sceptre) / Jo Tatchell
Keeping Mum (Atlantic Books) / Brian Thompson

Poetry
The Book of Blood (Jonathan Cape) / Vicki Feaver
Letter to Patience (Seren) / John Haynes
District and Circle (Faber and Faber) / Seamus Heaney
Dear Room (Faber and Faber) / Hugo Williams

Children’s Book
Clay (Hodder Children’s Books) / David Almond
The Diamond of Drury Lane (Egmont Press) / Julia Golding
Just in Case (Puffin) / Meg Rosoff
Set in Stone (David Fickling Books) / Linda Newbery

The winner of each category will be announced on January 10, 2007. The overall winner of the £25,000 Book of the Year will be announced on February 7, 2007.