The Costa Book Awards were a group of yearly awards that honored English-language books written by authors from the UK and Ireland. First called the Whitbread Book Awards from 1971 to 2005, the awards were named after their first sponsor, the Whitbread company, which was a brewery and owned bars and restaurants. In 2005, the name changed when Costa Coffee, a company owned by Whitbread, took over as the sponsor. A related award, the Costa Short Story Award, was created in 2012. In 2018, Costa Coffee was bought by the Coca-Cola Company. The awards stopped being given in 2022.

The awards recognized books that were both well-written and enjoyable to read. Their goal was to show how much fun reading could be for as many people as possible. Compared to the Booker Prize, which also honored English-language books from the UK and Ireland, the Costa Awards were seen as more popular with a wider audience.

The awards were divided into six categories: Biography, Children's Books, First Novel, Novel, Poetry, and Short Story.

In 1989, there was a disagreement among the judges when they first chose Alexander Stuart’s The War Zone for the Best Novel prize. Before the ceremony, the judges changed their decision and awarded the prize instead to Lindsay Clarke’s The Chymical Wedding.

History

In 1989, the Whitbread Book Award for Best Novel was first given to The War Zone by Alexander Stuart. However, one of the jurors, Jane Gardam, believed the book was "offensive" and wrote directly to the Whitbread company. She argued that giving the prize to Stuart's book would make the company a "source of embarrassment." After ten days and sharing the story with the press, the other two jurors, David Cook and Val Hennessy, changed their decision. Instead, Lindsay Clarke's The Chymical Wedding won the award. Both Cook and Hennessy found the experience so unpleasant that they promised never to serve on a jury again.

The Whitbread awards were stopped in 2022, with the 2021 awards being the final ones. One month later, the Blue Peter Book Award was also discontinued. This left only three major awards for UK children's literature: the Waterstones Children's Book Prize, the Carnegie Medal, and the Kate Greenaway Medal.

Process

There are five book award categories. These categories have not changed since the Poetry Award was created in 1985, though the children's category was sometimes called "children's novel" or "children's book of the year." The categories are:

Each of the five winning authors receives £5,000. Publishers must pay £5,000 if a book is considered for the shortlist.

The short story award was created in 2012. The prize includes £3,500 for the first place, £1,000 for the second place, and £500 for the third place. The winner is chosen by public voting from a shortlist of six stories selected by judges. The voting process was "blind," meaning that the names of the authors were hidden until the final decision.

In the first year of the award, the six shortlisted stories were shared online anonymously while the public vote took place. This happened two months before the winner was announced.

Winners

The overall Costa/Whitbread Book of the Year is identified by bold font and a blue ribbon ( ). For lists that include books shortlisted (where available), please see: /think.