Costa Categories

Culture
1

Women dominate the Costa Categories. In fact they won them all, with the slight exception of a husband wife team. Press release:


'The five successful authors who will now compete for the 2012 Costa Book of the Year are:


• Husband and wife team Mary and Bryan Talbot, who jointly win the Costa Biography Award for Dotter of Her Father's Eyes, an interweaving of two father-daughter relationships (that of James Joyce with his daughter Lucia, and that of the author with her father, a James Joyce scholar) and the first graphic work ever to win a Costa Award


• Hilary Mantel, who takes the Costa Novel Award for Bring up the Bodies, which won the 2012 Man Booker Prize


• Journalist, critic and writer Francesca Segal, whose debut novel The Innocents, set in a tightly-knit Jewish community in north-west London, is modelled on Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence, wins the Costa First Novel Award


• Poet Kathleen Jamie whose book The Overhaul, is described by the judges as 'the collection that will convert you to poetry'


• Writer-illustrator and dyslexia campaigner, Sally Gardner, who as a child was once branded 'unteachable', and now takes the Costa Children's Book Award for Maggot Moon.'


Glyn

2

My husband doesn't get on with Hornblower either - and he is both Naval and interested in History! Can't now remember why he doesn't like them .... :-)

Not really beating myself up about it! I just think that if I knew more background info then Wolf Hall would make more sense, and be easier to read and more enjoyable!!

3

It could be because I studied the period for A level. I still read lots of non fiction about the period. But not every genre is going to suit every person, so don’t beat yourself up about it. My wife just can’t get on with CS Forester’s Hornblower novels…:slight_smile:
Glyn

4

Not sure I am going to be queueing up to read any of those - but you never know!! Still struggling manfully (or should that be womanfully) through Wolf Hall ... I will have to have a HUGE burst of enthusiasm to even consider a sequel!! Maybe I should do some background reading on the period - and see if that helps!?