BookFabulous
reader, writer, book reviewer. battler of bathroom scales
tends to throw in the odd film or art mention
tends to throw in the odd film or art mention
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COSTA FIRST NOVEL AWARD WINNER 2016 'Golden Hill' by Francis Spufford, Faber & Faber  About the book: New York, a small town on the tip of Manhattan Island, 1746. One rainy evening, a charming and handsome young stranger fresh off the boat from England pitches up to a counting-house in Golden Hill Street, with a suspicious yet compelling proposition – he has an order for a thousand pounds in his pocket that he wishes to cash. But can he be trusted? This is New York in its infancy, a place where a young man with a fast tongue can invent himself afresh, fall in love, and find a world of trouble . . . About the author: Francis Spufford was born in 1964. A former Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year (1997), he is the author of five highly-praised books of non-fiction. The first, 'I May Be Some Time', won three literary prizes, and helped create a small new academic field, dedicated to the cultural history of Antarctica. His fourth, 'Red Plenty', has been translated into nine languages, including Polish, Russian and Estonian; 'Unapologetic' is richer in expletives than any previous work of religious advocacy, and was shortlisted for the Michael Ramsey Prize for Theological Writing. He has been longlisted or shortlisted for prizes in science writing, historical writing, political writing, theological writing and writing ‘evoking the spirit of place’. In 2007 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He teaches writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and lives near Cambridge. His first novel, 'Golden Hill', was published in 2016. What the judges said: “A captivating and dazzlingly original tale that heralds a bold, invigorating new voice in fiction.” COSTA NOVEL AWARD WINNER 2016 'Days Without End' by Sebastian Barry, Faber & Faber  About the book: After signing up for the US army in the 1850s, aged barely seventeen, Thomas McNulty and his brother-in-arms, John Cole, go on to fight in the Indian wars and, ultimately, the Civil War. Having fled terrible hardships themselves, they find these days to be vivid and filled with wonder, despite the horrors they both witness and are complicit in. Their lives are further enriched and endangered when a young Indian girl crosses their path, and the possibility of lasting happiness emerges, if only they can survive. About the author: Sebastian Barry was born in Dublin in 1955. His plays include 'The Steward of Christendom' (1995), 'Our Lady of Sligo' (1998) and 'The Pride of Parnell Street' (2007). His novels include 'A Long Long Way' (2005), 'The Secret Scripture' (2008), winner of the Costa Book of the Year, 'The Temporary Gentleman' (2014) and 'Days Without End' (2016). He has won, among other awards, the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Prize, the Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year, the Independent Booksellers Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. 'A Long Long Way' and the top ten bestseller 'The Secret Scripture' were shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. He lives in County Wicklow. What the judges said: 'A miracle of a book – both epic and intimate – that manages to create spaces for love and safety in the noise and chaos of history.' COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD WINNER 2016 'Dadland: A Journey into Uncharted Territory' by Keggie Carew, (Chatto & Windus)  About the book: Keggie Carew grew up in the gravitational field of an unorthodox father who lived on his wits and dazzling charm. As his memory begins to fail, she embarks on a quest to unravel his story, and soon finds herself in a far more consuming place than she had bargained for. Tom Carew was a maverick, a left-handed stutterer, a law unto himself. As a member of an elite SOE unit he was parachuted behind enemy lines to raise guerrilla resistance in France, then Burma, in the Second World War. But his wartime exploits are only the start of it..... About the author: Keggie Carew was born in Gibraltar and brought up in Hampshire. She has lived in West Cork, Barcelona, Texas, Auckland and London. Before writing, her career was in contemporary art, exhibiting her work in Ireland, London and New Zealand. She and her husband moved to London in 1995 where she studied English Literature and Art History at Goldsmiths University of London, and ran an alternative art space called JAGO. In 2010 she opened a pop-up shop in East End of London called 'theworldthewayiwantit'. In 2004, with sudden access to her father’s attic, she discovered two trunks of astonishing material that would seed the genesis of 'Dadland'. Two years later she began to research into her father’s past, and by 2009, having collected a vast amount of information together with her own memories and experiences, realised she had an extraordinary story to tell. Keggie is presently helping her husband, Jonathan, establish an environmental nature reserve on 16 acres of land, by reinstating a bio-diverse habitat for owls, bats, dragonflies, dormice and other wildlife. They live in a small rural cottage in Wiltshire, near Salisbury. What the judges said: 'We all adored this hilarious and heartbreaking book – you’ll be so glad you read it.'  About the book: Mutability – a sense that all matter is unstable in the face of mortality – is at the heart of this collection, and each poem is involved in that drama: the held tension that is embodied life, and life’s losing struggle with the gravity of nature. Working as before with an ear to the oral tradition, these poems attend to the organic shapes and sounds and momentum of the language as it’s spoken as well as how it’s thought: fresh, fluid and propulsive, but also fragmentary, repetitive. These are poems that are written to be read aloud. About the author: Alice Oswald lives in Devon and is married with three children. Her collections include 'Dart', which won the 2002 T S Eliot Prize, Woods etc. (Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize), 'A Sleepwalk on the Severn' (Hawthornden Prize), 'Weeds and Wildflowers' (Ted Hughes Award) and, most recently, 'Memorial', which won the 2013 Warwick Prize for Writing. ‘Dunt’, included in this collection, was awarded the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. What the judges said: 'We were all in awe of this book – please read it!' COSTA CHILDREN’S BOOK AWARD WINNER 2016 'The Bombs That Brought Us Together' by Brian Conaghan, Bloomsbury  About the book:
Charlie has always lived in Little Town. It’s home: the curfew, the Regime, the thugs, the poverty. He knows the rules. Then he meets Pavel. Scrawny, sweary, with fierce blue eyes, he is a refugee from Old Country – Little Town’s sworn enemy. The wrongest person in the whole place to choose as a friend. But when the bombs come, the rules of Little Town change. Country or friend? Trust or betrayal? Future or past? Right or wrong: Charlie must choose. About the author: Brian Conaghan was born and raised in the Scottish town of Coatbridge but now lives in Dublin. He studied at the University of Glasgow where he gained a Master of Letters in Creative Writing. Brian wasn’t destined to become an author. He left school at the age of sixteen to take up an apprenticeship in painting and decorating with the local authority. After a number of years on construction sites, he returned to college in an attempt to gain his secondary school qualifications. Following an intense two-year combination of work and study, he received enough grades to further his education and discovered an enduring passion for books, writing and drama. After university, Brian co-founded 'Vanishing Point Theatre Company', where his creative flame was ignited, and tried his hand at acting, DJing and teaching. He taught secondary school English in Scotland, Italy and Ireland for a number of years and in his early thirties he began to write fiction, accumulating a healthy pile of rejection letters (217 in total) before finding a publisher and an agent. He embarked on a full-time writing career in 2013. His first novel 'The Boy Who Made it Rain' was published in 2011. His second book, 'When Mr Dog Bites', attracted a major pre-emptive offer from Bloomsbury, who published it in the UK and the USA, and was translated into eight languages. It was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal in 2015, attracting both praise and controversy for its honest, moving and humorous depiction of a teenage boy with Tourette's syndrome. 'The Bombs That Brought Us Together' was published in 2016 to critical acclaim. His new novel, co-authored with Carnegie Medal winner Sarah Crossan and written in verse, 'We Come Apart', will be published in February 2017. What the judges said: 'Timely yet also hilariously funny, 'Bombs' is a necessary take on modern life in extraordinary circumstances'.
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