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The winner in each category receives £5,000. From these category winners the Costa Book of the Year 2011 will be chosen, the winner receiving a further £30,000. The Costa Book of the Year 2011 will be announced on 24th January 2012.

Costa Biography Award

• Now All Roads Lead to France : the last years of Edward Thomas by Matthew Hollis ~ an account of the last five years of the life of author Edward Thomas and his friendship with poet Robert Frost and his decision to fight in WWI
• Judges comments: “dramatic and engrossing“

Costa Novel Award

• Pure by Andrew Miller ~ set in Paris 1785
• Judges comments: Created a “structurally and stylistically flawless historical novel”

Costa First Novel Award

• Tiny Sunbirds Far Away by Christie Watson ~ this first novel by children’s nurse Watson is set in the Niger Delta.
• Judges comments: “readability and literary merit go hand in hand in this vibrant gem of a novel.”

Costa Poetry Award

• The Bees by Carol Ann Duffy ~ Carol Ann Duffy is the Poet Laureate in Britain.
• Judges comments: “We were thrilled by the poet’s musical feeling for language and her spellbinding ability to combine naturalness and formal complexity. It’s a joyful collection.”

Costa Children’s Book Award

• Blood Red Road by Moira Young ~ currently being adapted for film.

You can read about the Costa Book Award 2011 shortlist here.

 The 2011 book lists digested. What are the must-read lists made of?

Here’s our ultimate guide

 1 The novel that would have won the Booker prize if the fools in charge had given me the job rather than that lightweight Stella Rimington.

2 The King James’s Bible. The most compelling piece of poetry in the English language. Not that I’ve read it. Or intend to.

3 The “luminous” first novel of one of the students on my creative writing course.

4 The truly wonderful novel by my good friend that was unaccountably left off every literary prize long-list.

5 The new collection of poems and fragments from D’Erek, the authentic black voice of the underclass and the dispossessed.

6 The book that finally makes sense of string theory and shows you how to use quantum physics to get a haircut like Brian Cox.

7 The heartbreaking biography of a previously unknown major war poet who was killed on the first day of the battle of the Somme having just completed the first verse of his only poem.

8 The paperback edition of the thought-provoking novel by one of my best friends that was published in hardback last year. I know this doesn’t strictly count but he doesn’t have anything else out this year and it’s the only way I can squeeze him in.

9 The shocking deconstruction of modern culture that revealed D’Erek was in fact a white Oxford graduate.

10 The 37-page novella about a man who doesn’t have much to say that felt as rich and satisfying as many 400-page full-length novels.

11 The book whose title I can’t quite remember by an author who once gave me a jacket quote.

12 The brilliantly conceived historical novel that re-imagines the Tudor court of Henry VIII from the point of view of the man who was employed to wipe his arse.

13 Chick-lit often deservedly gets a bad press, but this novel is an exception – principally because I met the author at a publishing do and she’s well fit.

14 The richly satisfying work of modern counter-factualism that examines how Britain would now look if the M25 had never been built.

15 The provocative and groundbreaking insight into Lady Gaga buying her own drinks in a German nightclub that has reclaimed feminism for the 21st century.

16 The brilliantly researched history of the slipper in the Victorian novel by the lead fiction reviewer of the TLS who, I hope, will review my new book favourably next spring.

17 The compelling satire about a phone hacker who goes mad after listening to his own messages by mistake.

18 The astonishing work of literary scholarship that proved Martin Amis was actually only the second-greatest novelist who has ever lived.

19 The masterful novel by the author who promised to nominate my book in return.

20 The brave and heart-lifting account of the Chinese woman who spent 10 years working in a Nike sweatshop before coming out as a lesbian.

21 The utterly forgettable book by the author whose kids go to the same school in Islington as mine.

22 The disturbing first novel about a teenage rioter by a writer who perfectly captures the authentic voice of Huddersfield.

23 The book of counterintuitive cod psychology by an American with a silly haircut that proves if you say something persuasively enough you can end up on a Christmas booklist.

24 The riotous rewriting of The Dead Sea Scrolls in iambic pentameter by the country’s greatest living poet.

25 The stunning, transcendent new translation into Swedish of Pascal’s Pensées.

26 The collected journalism of an old hack who is well past his sell-by date and hasn’t written anything interesting for years but goes to dinner parties with the director of a publishing company.

27 The autobiography of the Higgs Boson particle that is both a savage indictment of Europe in the aftermath of the financial meltdown and a searching, provocative account of our relationship with God.

28 My book, Vertigo: One Football Fan’s Fear of Success. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Whatever they're on, I want some too!

Present :

Apologies : Vic, Beverley, Ros, Heather

Business :

1. We decided our January meeting would take the now traditional form of a pot luck visit to the pictures but with a change of date and change of venue. We’ll be off to the Mount Vic Flicks on Friday 13th January 2012.
2. Next book discussion will be February 3rd 2012 when we’ll read Beverley’s choice, Flock by Lyn Hughes.
3. Please think about your reading choice for the next round – should take us all the way through to mid-2013! See the Reading Lists page for what some have already nominated.

Discussion : David’s choice of Ransom by David Malouf gave us plenty to talk about and we must apologise for not leaving until almost midnight when David had to be at work at the crack of nothing the next morning.

Despite being set in a world at the mercy of gods who are capricious, vicious, unpredictable and beyond mortal control, there were parallels to be seen with today’s economic and environmental climate with capricious, vicious, unpredictable and uncontrollable governments, banks and environmental threats.

With Priam we come to see that there is a simple life where griddle cakes made with love and dipping your toes in the stream are to be enjoyed. David also suggests we read David Malouf’s essay in Quarterly magazine, The Happy Life.

Ransom was well received and scored a very respectable 4.2.

The cover reproduced here is the one chosen by Trish as the winning cover among those brought by members who’d actually read the book!

The winner of the overall Costa Book of the Year, which will be announced Tuesday 24th January 2012, and will get an additional £30,000. The Costa Book of the Year Award is the only prize in which children’s books compete with adult books in this way.

Here are this year’s shortlists :

Novel Award

• The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (winner of the Man Booker Prize this year)
• A Summer of Drowning by John Burnside
• Pure by Andrew Miller
• My Dear I Wanted to Tell You by Louisa Young

Read about each book in this category here.

First Novel Award

• City of Bohane by Kevin Barry
• The Last Hundred Days by Patrick McGuinness
• Tiny Sunbirds Far Away by Christie Watson
• Pao by Kerry Young

Read about each book in this category here.

Biography Award

• Thin Paths: Journeys In and Around an Italian Mountain Village by Julia Blackburn
• Henry’s Demons: Living with Schizophrenia – A Father and Son’s Story by Patrick and Henry Cockburn
• Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas by Matthew Hollis
• Charles Dickens: A Life by Claire Tomalin 

Read about each book in this category here.

Poetry Award

• The Bees by Carol Ann Duffy
• Night by David Harsent
• Fiere by Jackie Kay
• November by Sean O’Brien

Read about each book in this category here.

Children’s Book Award

• Flip by Martyn Bedford
• The Unforgotten Coat by Frank Cottrell Boyce
• Small Change for Stuart by Lissa Evans
• Blood Red Road by Moira Young

Read about each book in this category here.

Category winners will be announced on Wednesday 4th January 2012

Attendees :

Apologies : David, Sharon

Business :

1. Sasha has resigned from Book Thieves. She thanks us for having her for the little while she was a member.
2. Sasha’s place will be offered to Lynette, Gabrielle’s niece.
3. Mary is to find out if Rosemary intends to remain in Book Thieves or not.
4. Mary is to investigate options for a trip to the Hawkesbury in January.
5. Heidi is to set up a Doodle date  chooser to find out which weekend in January would suit most people for the excursion.

Discussion : Margaret led the group in what was an unusually unanimously disappointing read. With such a seemingly charming, erudite subject, expectations were high but most found Stephen Fry long-winded, self-indulgent and dismissive of the most interesting bits (his bi-polar disorder for instance) and we ended up with not a lot more than a list of what projects (film, stage or TV) he’d done with whom. Those who had read it recommend his first biography, Moab is my Washpot instead. The Fry Chronicles by Stephen Fry scored 2.5.

Next Meeting : Ransom by David Malouf at David’s.

The unique thing about this award is that the nominations are made by libraries in capital and major cities all over the world, each participating library being able to make 3 nominations on the basis of ‘high literary merit’ as determined by the nominating library.

Our own State Library of NSW is one of the participants.

The longlist was announced yesterday and if you click here you can read the full long list and also read a plot summary of each one. A judging panel then comes to a shortlist of 10 titles (due in April 2012) before the winner is announced in June 2012.

This year the 147 eligible nominated novels have come from 122 cities and 45 countries worldwide. Thirty-four of the nomintated titles have been translated into English from 18 different languages. Thirty-one of the nominated titles are first novels.

Australian nominees are Roger McDonald for When Colts Ran, Kim Scott for That Deadman Dance and Chris Womersley for Bereft.

I don’t find it confusing at all :

The Sense of an Ending is his first novel since 2005. His previously shortlisted novels are Arthur and George (2005), England, England (1998) and Flaubert’s Parrot(1984). Barnes has won several other prestigious prizes; he is the only writer to have won both the Prix Médicis (for Flaubert’s Parrot) and the Prix Femina (for Talking it Over), he was awarded the Austrian State Prize for European Literature in 2004 and earlier this year he was awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature in 2011 for his lifetime achievement in literature.

Dame Stella Rimington, Chair of the 2011 judges, made the announcement at the awards dinner at London’s Guildhall. Julian Barnes was presented with a cheque for £50,000. Dame Stella Rimington commented, ‘Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending has the markings of a classic of English Literature. It is exquisitely written, subtly plotted and reveals new depths with each reading.’ [Man Booker website]

The Sense of an Ending

The story of a man coming to terms with the mutable past, Julian Barnes’s new novel is laced with his trademark precision, dexterity and insight. It is the work of one of the world’s most distinguished writers.

Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they navigated the girl drought of gawky adolescence together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumour and wit. Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, certainly more intelligent, but they swore to stay friends forever. Until Adrian’s life took a turn into tragedy, and all of them, especially Tony, moved on and did their best to forget.

Now Tony is in middle age. He’s had a career and a marriage, a calm divorce. He gets along nicely, he thinks, with his one child, a daughter, and even with his ex-wife. He’s certainly never tried to hurt anybody. Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises, as a lawyer’s letter is about to prove. The unexpected bequest conveyed by that letter leads Tony on a dogged search through a past suddenly turned murky. And how do you carry on, contentedly, when events conspire to upset all your vaunted truths? [Fantastic Fiction]

You can read about the Man Booker shortlisted novels here.