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Entries for the 2011 Awards clsed closed on 24 June 2011. The shortlists were aannounced on 15 November and we'll hear about the category winners on 4 January 2012. The presentation ceremony follows on 24 January.
'''The Shortlists'''
'''Costa First Novel Award'''
'''Winner'''
{{topten
|author=Christie Watson
|title=Tiny Sunbirds Far Away
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''Tiny Sunbirds Far Away'' starts in Lagos but soon moves to the rural, oil producing Niger Delta. This allows Christie Watson's young narrator, 12 year old Blessing, to view the traditional ways afresh. It's a clever device and young Blessing is shocked by the rural conditions after a relatively luxurious life in Lagos with a good school and a modern apartment. But when her mother discovers her father on top of another woman, she takes Blessing and her older brother, the asthmatic Ezikiel, back to her family home.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184916374X</amazonuk>
}}
'''The rest of the shortlist'''
{{topten
'The Last Hundred Days' in question here are the final days of Ceausescu's Romania in late 1989. Narrated by an unnamed young British expat who has a job offer from the English department of Bucharest University, despite never having interviewed for the job, we get an insight into the life under communist rule as Eastern bloc countries all around start to open up after the fall of the Berlin Wall. We are told that McGuinness lived in Romania in the years leading up to the revolution, and this is no surprise as there is an authenticity here that could only have come from some level of inside knowledge.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1854115413</amazonuk>
}}
'''Costa Novel Award'''
'''Winner'''
{{topten
|author=Andrew Miller
|title=Pure
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=I've read Miller's Oxygen and The Optimists so I was looking forward to reading this novel. The story opens in the opulence of the Palace of Versailles. We are given vivid descriptions of both the scale of the palace and its grandeur. Jean-Baptiste Baratte, the young engineer, seems completely over-awed by the whole occasion. Even although he's not entirely sure what is expected of him in Paris, he accepts. He needs to eat, after all.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444724258</amazonuk>
}}
'''The rest of the shortlist'''
{{topten
|summary=''A Summer of Drowning'' is a book in which for much of the time not a lot happens - but always spookily. Set on the Norwegian island of Kvaløya in the Arctic Circle, the story is narrated by Liv who is now 28 but who recalls events of a summer when she was 18. Liv resides with her artist mother in, if not isolation, then certainly seclusion. The book makes much of the midsummer madness that 24 hour daylight induces and in that respect it is wholly successful. It aims for a dream-like and timeless quality which it largely achieves.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>022406178X</amazonuk>
}}
'''Costa Poetry Award'''
'''Winner'''
{{topten
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330442449</amazonuk>
}}
'''The rest of the shortlist'''
{{topten
'''Costa Biography Award'''
'''Winner'''
{{topten
|author=Matthew Hollis
|title=Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=A biography of Edward Thomas, a prolific writer and literary critic who only turned to poetry in 1914 yet became one of the most renowned poets of his generation despite being killed in action less than three years later.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571245986</amazonuk>
}}
'''The rest of the shortlist'''
{{topten
|summary=A poignant, moving account of one family's living with a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. Patrick tells most of the story, though his elder son Henry, the sufferer, has written some chapters from his point of view.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847377033</amazonuk>
}}
'''Costa Children's Book Award'''
'''Winner'''
{{topten
|author=Moira Young
|title=Blood Red Road
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Fabulous quest novel set in a future dystopian society and in the current vogue style of a revenge Western. It's beautifully done in spare prose and has a marvellous central character. Bookbag loved it.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407124250</amazonuk>
}}
'''The rest of the shortlist'''
{{topten
|summary=A wonderful story full of interesting, quirky characters...perfect for lovers of magic, or those who just enjoy a good action, adventure and mystery story!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>038561800X</amazonuk>
}}
