Costa Book Awards (1971-2006)

formerly the Whitbread Awards

Established in 1971 to "celebrate and promote the best of contemporary British Writing," this annual prize is awarded in the categories of fiction, poetry, biography, children's literature and for the best first novel.

Click on the title to read a short summary of the book, and to place a hold.

The number in parentheses after each book is the year in which it was awarded the Whitbread Award.

The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney (2006)

The New Policeman by Kate Thompson (2005)

The Harmony Silk Factory by Tash Aw (2005)

The Accidental by Ali Smith (2005)

Matisse the Master by Hilary Spurling (2005)

Cold Calls by Christopher Logue (2005)

Small Island by Andrea Levy (2004)

Eve Green by Susan Fletcher (2004)

My Heart is My Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots by John Guy (2004)

Not the End of the World by Geraldine McCaughrean (2004)

Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre (2003)

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (2003)

Orwell: The Life by D J Taylor (2003)

Landing Light by Don Paterson (2003)

The Fire-Eaters by David Almond (2003)

Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self by Claire Tomalin (2002)

The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht (2002)

Spies by Michael Frayn (2002)

The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman (2001)

Something Like a House by Sid Smith (2001)

Twelve Bar Blues by Patrick Neate (2001)

Selkirk's Island by Diana Souhami (2001)

English Passangers by Matthew Neale (2000)

White Teeth by Zadie Smith (2000)

Bad Blood by Lorna Sage (2000)

Beowulf by Seamus Heaney (1999)

White City Blue by Tim Lott (1999)

Music and Silence by Rose Tremain (1999)

Berlioz, Volume 2 by David Cairns (1999)

Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes (1998)

The Last King of Scotland by Giles Foden (1998)

Leading the Cheers by Justin Cartwright (1998)

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman (1998)

Tales from Ovid by Ted Hughes (1997)

The Ventriloquist’s Tale by Pauline Melville (1997)

Quarantine by Jim Crace (1997)

Victor Hugo by Graham Robb (1997)

The Spirit Level by Seamus Heaney (1996)

The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester (1996)

Every Man for Himself by Beryl Bainbridge (1996)

Thomas Cranmer: A Life by Diarmaid MacCulloch (1996)

Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson (1995)

The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie (1995)

Gladstone by Roy Jenkins (1995)

Felicia's Journey by William Trevor (1994)

The Longest Memory by Fred D'Aguiar (1994)

D H Lawrence: The Married Man by Brenda Maddox (1994)

Theory of War by Joan Brady (1993)

Saving Agnes by Rachel Cusk (1993)

Philip Larkin: A Writer's Life by Andrew Motion (1993)

Swing Hammer Swing! by Jeff Torrington (1992)

Poor Things by Alasdair Gray (1992)

Trollope by Victoria Glendinning (1992)

A Life of Picasso by John Richardson (1991)

Alma Cogan by Gordon Burn (1991)

The Queen of the Tambourine by Jane Gardam (1991)

Hopeful Monsters by Nicholas Mosley (1990)

The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi (1990)

A. A. Milne: His Life by Anne Thwaite (1990)

Coleridge: Early Visions by Richard Holmes(1989)

Gerontius by James Hamilton-Paterson (1989)

The Chymical Wedding by Lindsay Clarke (1989)

The Comforts of Madness by Paul Sayer (1988)

The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie (1988)

Tolstoy by A. N. Wilson (1988)

Under the Eye of the Clock by Christopher Nolan (1987)

The Other Garden by Francis Wyndham (1987)

The Child in Time by Ian McEwan (1987)

An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro (1986)

Continent by Jim Crace (1986)

Gilbert White by Richard Mabey (1986)

Elegies by Douglas Dunn (1985)

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson (1985)

Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd (1985)

Hugh Dalton by Ben Pimlott (1985)

A Parish of Rich Women by James Buchan (1984)

Kruger's Alp by Christopher Hope (1984)

T.S. Eliot by Peter Ackroyd (1984)

Flying to Nowhere by John Fuller (1983)

Fools of Fortune by William Trevor (1983)

Vita by Victoria Glendinning (1983)

King George V by Kenneth Rose (1983)

On the Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin (1982)

Young Shoulders by John Wain (1982)

Bismarck by Edward Crankshaw (1982)

A Good Man in Africa by William Boyd (1981)

Silver's City by Maurice Leitch (1981)

Monty: The Making of a General by Nigel Hamilton (1981)

How Far Can You Go? by David Lodge (1980)

On the Edge of Paradise: A C Benson the Diarist by David Newsome (1980)

The Old Jest by Jennifer Johnson (1979)

About Time by Penelope Mortimer (1979)

Picture Palace by Paul Theroux (1978)

Lloyd George: The People's Champion by John Grigg (1978)

Injury Time by Beryl Bainbridge (1977)

Mary Curzon by Nigel Nicolson (1977)

The Children of Dynmouth by William Trevor (1976)

Elizabeth Gaskell by Winifred Gerin (1976)

Docherty by William McIlvanney (1975)

In Our Infancy by Helen Corke (1975)

The Improbable Puritan: Bulstrode Whitelock by Ruth Spalding (1975)

The Sacred & Profane Love Machine by Iris Murdoch (1974)

Poor Dear Brendan by Andrew Boyle (1974)

The Life & Death of Mary Wollstonecraft by Claire Tomalin (1974)

The Chip Chip Gatherers by Shiva Naipaul (1973)

CB: A Life of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman by John Wilson (1973)

The Bird of Night by Susan Hill (1972)

Trollope by James Pope-Hennessey (1972)

The Destiny Waltz by Gerda Charles (1971)

Henrik Ibsen by Michael Meyer (1971)