Costa Book Award - Overall winner announced!

This year’s Costa Book of the Year has been awarded to Sebastian Barry for his novel The Secret Scripture.

He has scooped the £25,000 prize money after missing out on the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in October last year.

Chair of the final judges, Matthew Parris, said: "Sebastian Barry has created one of the great narrative voices in contemporary fiction in The Secret Scripture. It is a book of great brilliance, powerfully and beautifully written."

The Holt Jackson Quarterly Newsletter!

Due to the great response to the National Year of Reading quarterly newsletter, we have decided to carry it on!

The Holt Jackson’s newsletter will be released every 3 months, and will provide recommended reads, important dates and activities for the coming months.

We hope that you’ll find them useful!

For the January/February newsletter, click here.

Richard & Judy Book Club 2009

The first book in Richard and Judy’s new Book List for 2009, Jesse Kellerman’s The Brutal Art will be featured on 21st January. The other nine titles will be featured on a weekly basis.

Richard Madeley said: "Judy and I are always intrigued by each new list, we really enjoy reading along with the public. We're very proud of the Book Club and we're delighted it has made the transition with us to Watch."

Here is a full list of featured titles:

Kate Atkinson - When Will There Be Good News?

Beatrice Colin - The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite

Andrew Davidson - The Gargoyle

David Ebershoff - The 19th Wife

Steven Galloway - The Cellist of Sarajevo

Jesse Kellerman - The Brutal Art

Joseph O'Neill - Netherland
Frances Osbourne - The Bolter

Kate Summerscale - The Suspicions of Mr Whicher

Elizabeth H Winthrop - December

For more details please visit the subject list on COTW by clicking here.

Costa Book Award – Winners Announced

The winners of the five categories for this years Costa Book Awards have been revealed. Each winner has been shortlisted for the grand prize announced later this month.

The category winners are –

Biography: Somewhere Towards the End by Diana Athill
Poetry: The Broken Word, by Adam Foulds
Children's: Just Henry, by Michelle Magorian
Novel: The Secret Scripture, by Sebastian Barry
First novel: The Outcast, by Sadie Jones