:00:00. > :00:00.people are very keen to see visitors back here in the county of Cumbria
:00:00. > :00:00.which rely so much on tourists. They are keen to see people back here,
:00:00. > :00:00.back spending money and helping the recovery effort continue over the
:00:07. > :00:10.coming months. In a few minutes time the winner of the Costa Book Of The
:00:11. > :00:15.Year will be revealed in a ceremony in central London and the books in
:00:16. > :00:18.the running include a tale of Gothic rock, a Victorian melodrama, the
:00:19. > :00:22.story of a World War II pilot, the life of a German scientists and
:00:23. > :00:30.collection of poetry. Nick is that the awards ceremony for us to you.
:00:31. > :00:34.Welcome. We are in central London where as you can see the ceremony is
:00:35. > :00:41.well underway. Each of the five short listed books being introduced
:00:42. > :00:44.with a short video and the author stepping up to collect a cheque for
:00:45. > :00:48.?5,000 because they are all award winners already. There are five
:00:49. > :00:52.category prizes and from one of those five books ?30,000 book of the
:00:53. > :00:59.year prize will be chosen. Let's have a look at the runners.
:01:00. > :01:03.The winner of the novel prize is Kate Atkinson for A God In Ruins,
:01:04. > :01:09.the story of a World War II bomber pilot. Her earlier novel, life after
:01:10. > :01:11.life, one the same prize in 2013. The two books about stand-alone
:01:12. > :01:14.books and you don't need to read one to be the other end of the group
:01:15. > :01:18.would be very interested countries separately rather than thinking of
:01:19. > :01:24.this as a sort of sequel, but for me, because they knew I was going to
:01:25. > :01:29.write the story of Teddy, who is a child. I always had in my head.
:01:30. > :01:34.The first novel prize has gone to Andrew Hurley for The Loney, a
:01:35. > :01:37.modern Gothic tale of the supernatural set on the bleak shores
:01:38. > :01:40.of Morecambe Bay. Every year on the local news there
:01:41. > :01:45.are stories of ships being lost and people drowning. I found that it was
:01:46. > :01:49.a landscape that really retained that kind of memory. The was a sense
:01:50. > :01:53.of darkness there. And as far as I knew no one has really written about
:01:54. > :01:59.that every addiction before saw as a writer it was the quick fresh.
:02:00. > :02:06.The biography prizewinner is Andrea Wulf for The Invention of Nature. It
:02:07. > :02:08.is about a largely forgotten hero of 19th-century science.
:02:09. > :02:14.He is not disagreeable scholar who sits in his study. He goes out and
:02:15. > :02:17.he understands mountains. He climbs the Andes free sample and then
:02:18. > :02:21.compares them to the Pyrenees in Spain and the Alps in Switzerland.
:02:22. > :02:26.Subjects in this kind of global vision of nature and he's really the
:02:27. > :02:29.first to talk about nature as one of global patterns who talks about
:02:30. > :02:32.global vegetation, global climates, which is something no one had done
:02:33. > :02:37.before. The poetry prize has gone to Don
:02:38. > :02:40.Paterson for his collection 40 Sonnets. Patterson won this prize
:02:41. > :02:43.will way back in 2003. The first time it was awarded.
:02:44. > :02:49.Broadly as a dedicated readership but it is quite small and the nice
:02:50. > :02:51.thing about prices is at least for individual books, occasionally, it
:02:52. > :02:55.gives them the opportunity to break out of that circle a little bit.
:02:56. > :03:00.You're always very grateful for the book and the extra publicity which
:03:01. > :03:08.occurs as a result of this. The children's book winner is The
:03:09. > :03:13.Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge. Originally I was not certain where I
:03:14. > :03:16.was going to put my idea of The Lie Tree, this plant that feeds on lies
:03:17. > :03:20.and then produces fruit which you can eat in order to learn the
:03:21. > :03:23.secret. At first I was thinking of putting it in some fantasy world but
:03:24. > :03:28.were never tried to think within those terms the idea be rattling
:03:29. > :03:32.around loose in it. It was only when I actually thought of it in terms of
:03:33. > :03:36.a historic setting that clicked into place. And that I realised where it
:03:37. > :03:44.belonged that started to develop a certain emotional power.
:03:45. > :03:49.Well, those are the five runners and riders. And we're about, I think, to
:03:50. > :03:52.get the presentation of the cheque to the Costa biography award winner.
:03:53. > :03:57.You can see those interviews in full on BBC News website in the
:03:58. > :04:04.entertainment section. Now to talk about the books I am joined by
:04:05. > :04:07.Stephanie Merritt who is an author herself writing historical
:04:08. > :04:10.thrillers. What you think about these books question let's talk
:04:11. > :04:15.about Kate Atkinson? This novel and her predecessor,
:04:16. > :04:18.which won in 2013, think represent an extraordinary literary
:04:19. > :04:27.achievement for Kate Atkinson. This one has the edge. I think it is an
:04:28. > :04:30.absolutely phenomenal evocation of decades of post-war British light.
:04:31. > :04:36.There was a very clever game that she is playing with the reader
:04:37. > :04:39.inside the novel. As it reads straightforwardly it is just a
:04:40. > :04:47.beautifully written story of wartime heroism and men, or quieter domestic
:04:48. > :04:51.heroism that follow after the war. Do the kidneys to be read alongside
:04:52. > :04:56.its companion piece, the winner of two years ago?
:04:57. > :04:59.No, I think it can absolutely stand-alone. It can even be read
:05:00. > :05:04.before. A big one should read this one you will want to go back to life
:05:05. > :05:08.after life. It is less obviously tricksy and there is a less obvious
:05:09. > :05:11.conceit at the heart of it than the previous one but a deal is the same
:05:12. > :05:14.characters, so for people who have read the first one it is this very
:05:15. > :05:17.enjoyable continuation of the lives of these characters we've already
:05:18. > :05:22.got to know. Andrew Michael Hurley, The Loney,
:05:23. > :05:28.extraordinary sense about us in this book.
:05:29. > :05:32.It is a very gripping Gothic novel. It reminds me of some of Susan
:05:33. > :05:38.Hill's biting. Yes extraordinary gift for evoking a very unnerving
:05:39. > :05:43.spirit of place in this bleak and desolate coastline. It is a story.
:05:44. > :05:45.But a lot of the elements I think things that we've seen before in
:05:46. > :05:49.first doubles but think you're dealing in the Gothic then you
:05:50. > :05:55.necessarily going to be dealing with cliches.
:05:56. > :05:58.He doesn't camp it up, that's it? Yes, it's really a story about
:05:59. > :06:02.family as much as it is about the supernatural. As of the natural
:06:03. > :06:08.elements harbour the edge but it is as much a novel about family and the
:06:09. > :06:14.tensions in the family and a group of very devout believers believing
:06:15. > :06:17.to struggle with their base. Andrea Wulf going up behind us to
:06:18. > :06:23.get her cheque as winner of the biography prize.
:06:24. > :06:27.Frances Hardinge another exercise in Gothic and is of an actual menace.
:06:28. > :06:30.This is a wonderful book and a real discovery for me. This is exactly
:06:31. > :06:34.the kind of fiction I would've loved to be reading as a young teenager.
:06:35. > :06:38.It is also notably the only book that has got a young woman at the
:06:39. > :06:43.heart of it as the central character and she deals with all kinds of
:06:44. > :06:48.elements, Victorian, science, fantasies, it is a detective novel
:06:49. > :06:52.and echoes of Susan Cooper's novels in the coastal setting an element of
:06:53. > :06:54.magic she weaves into it and she is a suburb writer.
:06:55. > :07:03.What about the poetry? Always difficult for Poti to win an award
:07:04. > :07:07.like this from competition? Don Paterson is a great craftsman
:07:08. > :07:12.and it feels like he threatens other challenge with this perhaps most
:07:13. > :07:16.traditional and most familiar poetic form and what he has done within
:07:17. > :07:20.that is fascinating. Some of them are very funny, some of them barely
:07:21. > :07:24.count as Sonnets at all. Often the more traditional ones are the ones
:07:25. > :07:34.he pocketed that he has got politics, love, death, and there is
:07:35. > :07:37.an Amal is to the TV series house. These help sell books and only is
:07:38. > :07:43.that more than a poet. The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf, the winner
:07:44. > :07:46.of the biography prize. Extraordinary in that this man has
:07:47. > :07:56.been largely forgotten by being the speaking was -- English speaking
:07:57. > :08:01.world. His influence on other thinkers and writers and scientists
:08:02. > :08:04.whose names are more familiar to us. There are these wonderful
:08:05. > :08:11.digressions she goes on the creates a portrait of the age that he lived
:08:12. > :08:15.not just in his life. We're about to be told who the
:08:16. > :08:19.winner is. Good evening ladies and gentlemen.
:08:20. > :08:25.Can I start of the half of the judges by congratulating all of the
:08:26. > :08:28.five category winners and thanking them for the enormous entertainment
:08:29. > :08:33.they gave us, not just this evening, but over the past two months reading
:08:34. > :08:42.their books. We have flown in from the darkest Orinoco, to the Channel
:08:43. > :08:46.Islands, fire a Halifax bomber, stopping briefly at a bleak bay in
:08:47. > :08:51.Northumberland and Dundee City Council. And it has been an
:08:52. > :08:56.exhilarating ride a thing for all of us. So these are five amazing books.
:08:57. > :09:04.Andrew Michael Hurley's The Loney, Kate Atkinson's a god in Andrea
:09:05. > :09:11.Wulf's The Invention of Nature, Don Paterson's 40 Sonnets, and Frances
:09:12. > :09:13.Hardinge's The Lie Tree. So congratulations to all of them and
:09:14. > :09:17.congratulations also not just to tonight's judges but all the
:09:18. > :09:22.category judges were doing this fantastic sieving process of 638
:09:23. > :09:27.books down to the final five. And thank you to cost for continuing to
:09:28. > :09:32.support this very important prize. It was started in 1971 when I was
:09:33. > :09:40.14, when David Barry was wondering if there was life on Mars, -- David
:09:41. > :09:42.Bowie, and I was on was big and frightening the definitely over
:09:43. > :09:48.there. If you could remember this, you could not buy a book that first
:09:49. > :09:51.getting a ticket. How will the world has changed, but what has not
:09:52. > :09:54.changed is that great writing are still coming through, as is great
:09:55. > :09:58.publishing. You only have to look at the covers of these great books to
:09:59. > :10:01.see that as the case. It will continue to be this way, if I may
:10:02. > :10:12.make this plea, providing that we go on an understanding that every
:10:13. > :10:14.organism needs writing. Monocultures are destroying and book-selling
:10:15. > :10:20.function desires the greatest variety that we shall all support.
:10:21. > :10:23.And a message to book-sellers, this is your prize. There is something
:10:24. > :10:27.for everybody here so feel your boots not just with the winner but
:10:28. > :10:29.with the short list as well. And tell us who the winner is, may now
:10:30. > :10:48.hand over. And the winner of the 2015 Costa
:10:49. > :10:53.Book Of The Year is... The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge.
:10:54. > :11:28.APPLAUSE Thank you very much. I am now going
:11:29. > :11:34.to try and remember this speech that I was told to prepare but I thought
:11:35. > :11:38.I was not going to need. Have you seen those films where there is a
:11:39. > :11:44.dream sequence, because what is happening to the character is too
:11:45. > :11:51.perfect and at the point where they realise that they are able to break
:11:52. > :11:53.out of it. I'm trying not to realise how implausible doses because I like
:11:54. > :12:04.this dream sequence and I would like to keep it. I will run quickly into
:12:05. > :12:16.a quick Oscar speech. I would like to thank my agent, who is not here.
:12:17. > :12:18.I would like to thank McMillan for taking chances on all my synopses,
:12:19. > :12:24.which when I pitched them sounded completely mad. The Lie Tree was not
:12:25. > :12:32.an exception, although perhaps less mad than others. I would like to
:12:33. > :12:40.thank my writers groups and my friend and many other people,
:12:41. > :12:49.certainly my long-suffering and patient boyfriend, Martin, who is
:12:50. > :12:58.here and does not like attention. Thank you very much and thank you to
:12:59. > :13:09.the judges for allowing a children's book to get it. It is a fantastic
:13:10. > :13:16.time to be writing children's fiction. It is thoroughly exciting.
:13:17. > :13:21.For those people who may be hearing this that think that children's
:13:22. > :13:26.fiction is not the thing, please do explore it, there is a beautiful
:13:27. > :13:37.jungle out there. Thank you all very much.
:13:38. > :13:47.Frances Hardinge there. An unexpected winner to herself and
:13:48. > :13:53.many other people. As she said, children's books do not often win
:13:54. > :14:03.prizes like this. I children's book has only won this prize once before,
:14:04. > :14:09.that was in 2002 with the Amber Spyglass. She is in good company.
:14:10. > :14:15.She has learned something from Terry Pratchett about the importance of
:14:16. > :14:19.branding if you are a writer for children and she is never seen in
:14:20. > :14:27.public without that hat. This is the winning book, The Lie Tree. It is
:14:28. > :14:32.about a tree that you feed by telling lies to and in exchange you
:14:33. > :14:39.get to learn the secrets of the world. The judges said it was a
:14:40. > :14:45.great story with fabulous characters and the likely message, the message
:14:46. > :14:55.is that girls and boys can be scientists. The heroine is a very
:14:56. > :14:57.intelligent girl, her father is a distinguished scientist, but no one
:14:58. > :15:04.believes that she can be a scientist. This is a book that
:15:05. > :15:10.stands up for women and young girls and the education of girls and
:15:11. > :15:18.giving them opportunities. Are you pleased that this book one? I am
:15:19. > :15:22.delighted. I was rooting for Kate Atkinson, because I loved her book.
:15:23. > :15:28.There is a sense that the children's book is not on a level playing field
:15:29. > :15:33.with the others, but I was so struck by what an extraordinary writer she
:15:34. > :15:38.is, she's very sophisticated, Frances Hardinge, and this is
:15:39. > :15:45.beautifully written. It does not read like a children's book, it is
:15:46. > :15:50.very sophisticated, it is a novel of ideas and I think it is an exciting
:15:51. > :16:01.winner. It is lovely to see those categories exploded. She taught
:16:02. > :16:10.there about children and young adult's fiction -- she talked there.
:16:11. > :16:16.I would say this is aimed at young teenagers rather than children. It
:16:17. > :16:23.is a grown-up book, isn't it? The main character is 14, but I think
:16:24. > :16:28.what she has in common with Philip Pullman is that she does not rate
:16:29. > :16:33.down to children. There is quite complicated scientific research and
:16:34. > :16:39.quite complex history and politics in the book. There is no sense that
:16:40. > :16:46.she's oversimplifying for a younger audience I think that is inspiring
:16:47. > :16:51.for younger readers. I learned a lot about attitudes to devolution,
:16:52. > :16:59.religion and so on in the 19 century. -- evolution. She said was
:17:00. > :17:03.that the time when Darwin and his ideas were gaining currency. There
:17:04. > :17:10.is a wonderful crossover rate the historical detail is spot-on and she
:17:11. > :17:15.has done a lot of research into palaeontology and the methods of
:17:16. > :17:23.these fossil hunters. There is also an element of fantasy in magic. Her
:17:24. > :17:30.historical setting is absolutely plausible, therefore young people
:17:31. > :17:34.will learn from it. Thank you. Earlier this month I spoke to
:17:35. > :17:43.Frances Hardinge, as I did to all the authors, and this is what we had
:17:44. > :17:49.to say. Frances Hardinge, this is a good story if nothing else. Give us
:17:50. > :17:55.a brief outline of the plot. It is set in the mid-19th century on a
:17:56. > :18:00.fictional channel island where a family has just arrived fleeing
:18:01. > :18:06.scandal. The father is a natural scientist and his daughter, Faith,
:18:07. > :18:12.who is 14, is passionately interested in science, but is the
:18:13. > :18:17.middle of the 19 century and she is a girl. After her father dies she is
:18:18. > :18:21.the only person convinced that he has been murdered and she begins to
:18:22. > :18:26.investigate and then she discovers that one of his specimens is a tree
:18:27. > :18:36.that according to his notes feeds on lies. Let us stop there for fear of
:18:37. > :18:41.spoiling it. There are exciting events that Faith gets involved in.
:18:42. > :18:45.One of the things that makes it appealing is the stuff about
:18:46. > :18:50.science, religion, approaches to evolution in the 19 century, and the
:18:51. > :18:57.plight of an intelligent young woman in Victorian times who was trapped.
:18:58. > :19:02.There was no way that I could not address the question of gender while
:19:03. > :19:06.writing this book. I had this young girl who was passionate about
:19:07. > :19:10.science and she's going to run into rejection and obstacles at every
:19:11. > :19:15.turn. That is something I personally feel angry about. I consider
:19:16. > :19:20.education for girls to be an incredibly important issue globally.
:19:21. > :19:27.One of my bees came out of its bonnet for a little buzz there. She
:19:28. > :19:30.is very angry. Is that you reflecting the mindset of the
:19:31. > :19:34.average teenager or are you trying to exploit something darker at the
:19:35. > :19:40.Faith and her approach to life? She has a lot of suppressed anger as she
:19:41. > :19:45.does have a dark side and that is something which is explored. I like
:19:46. > :19:52.complicated heroes and heroines that have that element to them and quite
:19:53. > :19:56.a lot of my protagonists are angry in different ways, although they
:19:57. > :20:00.don't always immediately realise it. This is different from some of your
:20:01. > :20:03.earlier books because it is set in a defined above historical period, not
:20:04. > :20:10.in an alternative world that you have created. What is the appeal of
:20:11. > :20:19.something that is rooted in historical actuality? I was not
:20:20. > :20:22.certain where I was going to put my idea of the tree that feeds on lies
:20:23. > :20:27.and then produces fruits that you can eat alone a secret. I was
:20:28. > :20:32.thinking about putting it in a fantasy world but when I try to
:20:33. > :20:37.think about it in those terms the idea was just rattling around. It
:20:38. > :20:40.was only when I thought of it in terms of the historic setting that
:20:41. > :20:48.it clicked into place and I will I swear it belonged and it developed
:20:49. > :20:51.an emotional power. There is a passage after her father has died
:20:52. > :20:55.when the household has gone into mourning and you talk about the
:20:56. > :20:59.clocks being stopped. As she stopped the clocks she said that she felt
:21:00. > :21:08.like a murderer, it was the house of the dead now, these phrases I have
:21:09. > :21:14.picked out. You are not one of those writers who strikes out the purple
:21:15. > :21:20.passages. No, I have a long-standing love affair with language. I do
:21:21. > :21:27.strike out purple passages, it is just that quite a lot are left. Our
:21:28. > :21:32.metaphors hunt in packs and they stop, so that is the whistle down
:21:33. > :21:39.version. Frances Hardinge, thank you very much indeed. Frances Hardinge
:21:40. > :21:47.joins me now. Congratulations. You sounded dumbfounded to have one.
:21:48. > :21:55.That was not trained. I still am. I am in a state of shock. I was not
:21:56. > :21:58.expecting that. You are in good company, although one children's
:21:59. > :22:04.author has won the prize before and that is Philip Pullman, one of the
:22:05. > :22:10.giants of children's literature. Are you in all? Completely. Being in
:22:11. > :22:21.that company is utterly extraordinary. It really has not
:22:22. > :22:24.sunk in yet. It is very good news. You get a very large cheque and it
:22:25. > :22:31.is going to do wonders for your sales. Is that important to you? Do
:22:32. > :22:36.you hope to reach a wider audience? I think every author hopes to reach
:22:37. > :22:42.a wider audience. Every author hopes that whatever they write will be
:22:43. > :22:48.read and hopefully lots and enjoy its hour it will be helpful to
:22:49. > :22:54.somebody. UID chair of the judges and nine if you met this afternoon.
:22:55. > :22:58.Was it a unanimous choice? It was not unanimous and all of the books
:22:59. > :23:06.had their champions but in the end it was consensual. What is the
:23:07. > :23:09.difference between consensual... It means it had a lot of champions but
:23:10. > :23:15.everybody thought that it was very good. There was consensus across all
:23:16. > :23:22.of us thinking it was a fantastic, worthy winner. What was it about
:23:23. > :23:25.this particular book, about Frances Hardinge's The Lie Tree, what was
:23:26. > :23:39.it? classic story and a page turner. It
:23:40. > :23:44.has a central brilliant idea of a tree that feeds of people's lies and
:23:45. > :23:52.this central heroine called Faith, who is 14-year-old girl in the
:23:53. > :23:56.Victorian era and with all of the challenges of that if you are
:23:57. > :24:01.intelligent with a scientific brain. So it is about her struggle with
:24:02. > :24:06.that and how she goes on to solve a fascinating detective story. Is that
:24:07. > :24:13.what you get above the other children's books? It is dealing with
:24:14. > :24:18.some quite serious issues like the education of women and they troubled
:24:19. > :24:23.the Victorians had coming to terms with the theory of revolution. It
:24:24. > :24:26.was the marriage of not just great story and characterisation that the
:24:27. > :24:35.central important message and I think any 14-year-old, I think it is
:24:36. > :24:39.a book for women and children, which is the age of the heroine, would
:24:40. > :24:46.find each amend this amount to identify with today. Frances
:24:47. > :24:49.Hardinge, this is not your first novel and you were very
:24:50. > :24:56.accomplished. How will this change in approach to what you do? It will
:24:57. > :25:01.change the way that I write. Will it change the kind of books that you
:25:02. > :25:07.write? Probably not. My books are quite different. I like after
:25:08. > :25:11.finishing his challenge going on to something completely different. I
:25:12. > :25:19.will probably continue writing the way that I do. I do not know how
:25:20. > :25:25.else to write. Frances Hardinge, my congratulations. Thank you for your
:25:26. > :25:35.time. We must let you go and have a glass of champagne. Thank you very
:25:36. > :25:39.much. The winner of Costa Book Awards is Frances Hardinge's The Lie
:25:40. > :25:41.Tree. We will hand you back to the