Costa Book Awards Shortlists 2010: Reviews

The shortlists for the 2010 Costa Book Awards were announced yesterday.

Click on the titles to read what the critics had to say about the contenders:

2010 Costa Novel Award shortlist

Louise Doughty for Whatever You Love (Faber & Faber)

Nigel Farndale for The Blasphemer (Doubleday)

Maggie O’Farrell for The Hand That First Held Mine (Headline Review)

Paul Murray for Skippy Dies (Hamish Hamilton)

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2010 Costa First Novel Award shortlist

Kishwar Desai for Witness the Night (Beautiful Books)

Nikesh Shukla for Coconut Unlimited (Quartet Books) no reviews

Aatish Taseer for The Temple-Goers (Viking)

Simon Thirsk for Not Quite White (Gomer Press)

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2010 Costa Biography Award shortlist

Sarah Bakewell for How to Live: A Life of Montaigne (Chatto & Windus)

Michael Frayn for My Father’s Fortune (Faber & Faber)

Edmund de Waal for The Hare with Amber Eyes (Chatto & Windus)

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Reaction

“This award wants to get down with the kids” Boyd Tonkin, Independent

“Biography: too short a shortlist?” Claire Armistead, Guardian Books Blog