Under the Spotlight

Whether it’s giving up smoking or simply getting your life in order, nearly everyone sets themselves a goal for the New Year. Something to improve your lifestyle or get your life back on track.

It’s more than likely that most people have more than one thing they need to change, so we have compiled a list of 12 popular New Year Resolutions for you to choose from.

And we all know it’s never easy! Most of us give up in the first week! So to give you a little guidance and support, we have matched each resolution with a handy title. Hopefully they will provide that much-needed encouragement to stick with it!

Take a look at the 12 New Year Resolutions we have chosen and visit the subject list click here.

Good Luck!

Costa Book Awards 2008 Shortlist

The Shortlist for the Costa Book Awards 2008 is as follows -

Costa First Novel Award

Poppy Adams' The Behaviour of Moths
Sadie Jones' The Outcast
Jenny Rooney's Inside the Whale
Tom Rob Smith's Child

Costa Novel Award
Sebastian Barry's The Secret Scripture
Chris Cleave's The Other Hand
Louis De Bernieres A Partisan's Daughter
Patrick McGrath's Trauma

Costa Biography Award
Diana Athill's Somewhere Towards The End
Judith Mackrell's Bloomsbury Ballerina
Sathnam Sanghera's If You Don't Know Me By Now

Jackie Wullschlager's Chagall

Costa Poetry Award
Ciaran Carson's For All We Know
Adam Foulds' The Broken Word
Kathryn Simmonds' Sunday at the Skin Launderette

Greta Stoddart's Salvation Jane

Costa Children's Book Award
Keith Gray's Ostrich Boys
Saci Lloyd's The Carbon Diaries 2015

Michelle Magorian's Just Henry
Jenny Valentine's Broken Soup

One winner will be chosen from each catogory on the 6th January 2009 and will win £5,000 prize. An overall winner will then be decided on 27th January collecting the title and £25,000 in prize money!