Virtual Costa Book Awards Part 3: Linda Newbery and guests

 

Here's the final batch of virtual awards. We're luckier than the real Costas - we can award as many as we like! For this final post, alongside some of our regular or previous guests we welcome two new ones: Louise Ellis-Barrett, editor of Armadillo, the online children's book magazine and blog, and author and screenwriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce. Thank you to all our guests for their choices, and congratulations to all our virtual winners.

JOHN NEWMAN of Newham Books awards the Virtual Costa Novel Prize to Seven Steeples by Sara Baume.

Sarah Baume’s latest work, shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize, traces seven years in the lives of Bell and Sigh as they inhabit a rented cottage in rural Ireland along with their two dogs. What they do in their cottage is never explained; instead the minutia of their lives is explored with real warmth and a level of detail never applied to their actual relationship. We learn about the contents of each room and how their routines shape them. We discover ways the cottage and its environs are changed by the weather and the seasons. This is a greater focus then how they adapt and relate to each over time. Even so, you feel they want to be together and there is something deeply reassuring about this. And all the time you wonder if they will ever climb an overshadowing mountain to view those Seven Steeples. This is a small book with big themes and not a word is wasted.

PENNY DOLAN's choice is a second Virtual Costa Novel Prize vote for Bonnie Garmus for Lessons in Chemistry (also chosen by Helena Pielichaty in Part 2):

Set in 1960’s America, the novel is about a brilliant young chemist, Elizabeth Zott, whose life’s purpose is scientific study, no matter what. And there is an awful lot of what in Zott’s life: an unschooled childhood; loneliness and loss, single motherhood, type-casting and brutal misogyny from the academic establishment.

Yet Lessons in Chemistry is a delight. As light and swift to read as a fairy tale, the sometimes painful plot turns with wit and humour until the clues and relationships click into place or as deserved. This is a book about determination, hope and the fight for equality, with a fictional heroine I could not help cheering for, despite the fact she would not care whether I did or not. Besides, how often does good fortune spring from one daughter stealing another’s perfectly packed lunchbox? Thank you, Bonnie Garmus, for a bright book in a dark time.

JON APPLETON awards the Virtual Costa First Novel Prize to Taymour Soomro for Other Names for Love:

A dazzling coming-of-age novel in which Fahad is flung from his comfortable, knowable London life into unfamiliar, primitive-seeming Pakistan at the demands of his formidable father who wants to mould his son in his own uncompromising image. Both father and son are grappling with their identities: Fahad is gay but is forced to be restrained and secretive while his outgoing, fearless father is facing the erosion of his authority and influence in his local community. The novel is about love and taboo and family ties, all sparely evoked with a strangely haunting immediacy. Perhaps most impressive of all is the way the story leaps across time and space to begin again, years later, losing none of the novel's cohesion.

LINDA NEWBERY awards the Virtual Costa Novel Prize to Patrick Gale for Mother's Boy:

Mother's Boy is a thoroughly engrossing, moving and informative novel based on the life of the reclusive Cornish poet, Charles Causley - taking in his wartime experiences as a coder and his first forays into writing drama. The viewpoint alternates between Causley and his devoted mother, Laura, who has her own story. With a sure eye for detail Patrick Gale conjures social and domestic life and draws inferences from Causley's poetry and correspondence to portray his secretive inner life and sexuality. As I'd felt sure that Mother's Boy would feature strongly in the real Costas this year had they happened, it has to be my choice for the novel award.

JANE ROGERS awards the Virtual Costa Biography Prize to Osman Yousefzada for The Go-Between:

This memoir tells the magical tale of a Pashtun boy born into a poor immigrant community in Birmingham, who has become a world-celebrated artist and designer. His mother is a skilled seamstress but it is Osman, as a young boy, who chooses the fabric and delivers the garments. The loving descriptions of his mother’s fabrics reveals a fascination and talent which has since shaped his life, as a fashion designer for the likes of Beyonce and Lady Gaga. Both parents are illiterate, deeply devout Muslims. At puberty Osman, like other Pashtun boys, is banished to his father’s side, the world of men. He fares better than his sisters, though; they are removed from education around the age of 11, and from then onwards kept hidden from the sight of any men. Yousefzada finds himself torn between his people’s culture and the white culture he has to absorb at school, where racism and ignorance are meted out by pupils and teachers alike.

What is most compelling about this wonderful book is its child’s eye view of the complications and contradictions which surround him. He never judges, he simply tries to understand.

YVONNE COPPARD gives the Virtual Costa Biography Prize to Stanley Tucci for Taste - My Life in Food:

If you love Italian food, you will surely love this. Have a napkin handy just in case you start drooling. Stanley Tucci’s obsession with food borders on the disturbing in places - is he really joking when he insists that cutting spaghetti with a knife is an unforgiveable, if not capital, offence?

Tucci writes with warmth, wit and occasional flashes of insight about the life passion for good food that was instilled by his Italian American family. Humour, like the food, infuses everything, even the brief poignant passages touching on matters such the untimely death of his first wife.

Best of all, there are recipes scattered throughout the book. I will not be trying timpano anytime soon; Tucci’s savagely funny description of Christmases ruined by this monstrous culinary beast is persuasive. Thankfully, though, most of the recipes seem to infuse the very pages with aromas and tastes that will draw you into the kitchen to have a go.

LOUISE ELLIS-BARRETT awards the Virtual Costa Children's Book Prize to Belladonna by Adalyn Grace:

It was not a difficult choice to nominate the deliciously, captivatingly dark Belladonna as my book of the year. It is a richly imagined web of intrigue, a rich gothic romance, dark and spectacular. Jinxed as a baby to see all those around her fall and die, it is perhaps a wonder that Signa comes of age and reaches the time at which she will inherit her family wealth. Signa is a mystery; her life is full of mystery, one that only deepens as the story unfolds. Never far from her side Death makes a fascinating and dangerous shadow and primary character in the story causing us, as readers, to question our own preconceived ideas. I was quickly addicted to the writing, the characters and this story which promises and delivers so much. A sequel is promised in 2023, I for one cannot wait!  

FRANK COTTRELL-BOYCE awards the Virtual Costa Children's Book Prize to Lissa Evans for Wished:

It was unusually difficult to choose a winner as it’s been a year of terrific books by the likes of Maisie Chan, Phil Earle and SF Said but I’m going to go for Wished by Lissa Evans. Because - like Groundhog Day or The Phoenix and the Carpet - it takes a really simple, funny conceit and works it until every possible laugh, tear and scrap of wisdom has been wrung from it. Ed and Roo are sent to stay with an elderly neighbour - Miss Filey - while their house is being done up.

 
There they discover that Miss Filey’s birthday candles really do grant wishes. But only for as long as the candle is burning. LIssa Evan’s background is comedy and this is a VERY funny book. It contains the funniest cut from one scene to another I’ve ever come across. But it’s also full of heart and wisdom. When the children finally come to realise that Miss Filey has unfulfilled wishes of her own, I defy you not to shed a tear.

PATRICK GALE awards the Virtual Costa Novel Prize to Jessica Andrews for Milk Teeth:

My nomination is a fantastically original novel that was oddly overlooked given how well her debut, Saltwater, was received: Jessica Andrews' Milk Teeth.

What would you have chosen, in any of the five categories? (Novel, First Novel, Biography, Poetry, Children's). Please tell us in the comments!

See Part 1 here: Adele Geras and guests

See Part 2 here: Celia Rees and guests

Virtual Costa Book Awards Part 1: Adèle Geras and guests

It's my great pleasure to introduce Writers Review's Virtual Costa Book Awards. We were very sad indeed to hear that the real life Costa Book Awards are no more, so we decided to set up our very own Virtual Awards. Over the next three weeks, we're putting up recommendations for the awards from some friends of Writers Review. You'll find my choice at the end of this selection from some wonderful writers. I hope they lead you to read lots of books you will enjoy.

Merry Christmas from us all!  Adèle Geras

KATIE FFORDE nominates Jane Bailey's Sorrow isn't Good Enough for the Virtual Best Novel Prize:

Jane Bailey's writing is clear and easy to read and we instantly connect to the heroine, Stephanie, both in the present day and in the past. Few people write from a child's point of view as well as Jane and the little girl she describes, desperate for love, aware of life's unfairness but accepting it nonetheless, is entirely convincing.

With her we travel back to the Sixties, a simpler, crueller time for children. No wonder there is a darker side to this coming of age story. We learn about the tragedy on the first page: the notorious murder of Stephanie's best friend. But friendship is complicated; not what it seems from a distance.

This is not always a comfortable novel but one I couldn't turn away from. Jane Bailey is a writer who should be known to more people. She is so good.

VAL McDERMID nominates Ali Smith's Companion Piece for the Virtual Costa Novel Prize:

This novel is the coda to Smith's Four Seasons quartet. She carries the reader along in a broad and diverse narrative sweep and produces a vivid portrait of contemporary life. She writes beautifully but although she shines a light on the worst things we do to each other, her work is imbued with hope. Somehow, while firmly rooted in the real world, she can be surreal and dreamlike at times.

Companion Piece is intelligent, compassionate and often very funny. I found it exhilarating. With her books, when I reach the end I always want to go back to the beginning and do it all again. But with Companion Piece, I felt compelled to go back to Autumn, the beginning of the Seasons quartet and read all five again. And I'm glad I did.

WENDY COPE nominates My Phantoms by Geraldine Riley for the Virtual Costa Novel Prize:

I've just finished this. It is a brilliantly readable study of the relationship between a daughter and her sad, inadequate and often infuriating mother. Much of the time the daughter distances herself and is sometimes unkind. When she agrees to see her mother and to help her when she's ill, her attempts at forming a relationship more satisfying to both of them meet with little success. Their encounters are often funny as well as painful. The book is only 199 pages long and it left me wanting more.

SOPHIE HANNAH nominates Ignore it all and hope it goes away by Nic Aubury for the Virtual Costa Poetry Prize:

Ignore it all and hope it goes away should win every poetry prize going. It is wise, witty, moving, memorable, and displays prosodic dexterity that one very rarely sees these days. It also has the most wonderful illustrations by genius cartoonist Moose Allain.

MICHAEL ARDITTI nominates Donal Ryan's The Queen of Dirt Island  for the Virtual Costa Novel Prize:

I have been particularly taken with Irish fiction this year, including Audrey Magee's The Colony and Emma Donahue's Haven, but the pick of the crop for me is Donal Ryan''s The Queen of Dirt Island. It tells of three (ultimately four) generations of women in rural Tipperary, whose menfolk are either dead, weak, absent or treacherous. In a series of short, almost self-contained chapters, Ryan tells of family love and loyalty, which endures hardship, prejudice, illegitimacy and suicide. Opening in the 1980s, both republicanism and a repressive clergy inevitably feature, but the focus is on the domestic, and often fractious but always nurturing home that the women share. Ryan's writing is by turns sharp, funny, lyrical and tinges with a winning melancholy, and when, in a metafictional twist, we learn that it's also the writing of Saoirse, the novel's central character, we can only cheer at her triumph over the odds.

AMANDA CRAIG nominates Sally Gardner's The Weather Woman for the Virtual Costa Novel Prize.

The Weather Woman reads like Georgette Heyer crossed with Angela Carter, being historical, magical, gorgeously written and pulsing with romantic energy. Its heroine Neva is born with an extraordinary gift: she can predict the weather at any given date. In Regency England, when society is obsessed by gambling, this is a gift that can make or break immense fortunes, so her clockmaker father conceals her in an automaton.

However, Neva is also thirsty for an education, something forbidden to women. She dresses as a man, and soon falls in love with Henri, a charismatic young French count who shares her poverty and her undeclared passion. From its opening at a Frost Fair to its climactic struggle against villainy, it is packed with drama, but it also contains a beautiful description of what making love as equals should be like.

JUDITH LENNOX nominates This is not a Pity Memoir by Abi Morgan for the Virtual Costa Biography Prize:

Screenwriter Abi Morgan comes home from buying sushi to find her partner Jacob unconscious on the bathroom floor. His seizure marks the onset of a devastating illness. He is put into an induced coma from which he emerges months later, fragile and unravelled, unable to recognise Abi, convinced she’s an imposter.

The everyday continues – taxes must be paid, scripts completed, sometimes at midnight - though life is now irrevocably divided into BC (before collapse) and AD (after disaster). Morgan’s memoir has the urgency of a thriller and is written with honesty and humour, brilliantly describing her fluctuating emotions and the exhaustion of hope and despair. Though the story is tragic, it’s never depressing, as Morgan learns to live for ‘daily glimmers of happiness,’ and they emerge into a strange new world, traumatised and altered but held together by love.

ADELE GERAS nominates The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn for the Virtual Costa First Novel Prize:

The Whalebone Theatre is a most accomplished debut. It's a family story starting before the Second World War and covering many events familiar from other novels. What marks this book out is the characters of the siblings at the heart of the action, brought together to deal with everything the world can throw at them. The eponymous Theatre   (the remains of a carcass washed up on the Devon coast) becomes the heart of the several interlocking stories.  I love "let's do the show right here" novels and this is a hugely enjoyable example of the genre.

Click here for Part 2 ...