Costa Book Awards

people are very keen to see visitors back here in the county of Cumbria

which rely so much on tourists. They are keen to see people back here,

back spending money and helping the recovery effort continue over the

coming months. In a few minutes time the winner of the Costa Book Of The

Year will be revealed in a ceremony in central London and the books in

the running include a tale of Gothic rock, a Victorian melodrama, the

story of a World War II pilot, the life of a German scientists and

collection of poetry. Nick is that the awards ceremony for us to you.

Welcome. We are in central London where as you can see the ceremony is

well underway. Each of the five short listed books being introduced

with a short video and the author stepping up to collect a cheque for

?5,000 because they are all award winners already. There are five

category prizes and from one of those five books ?30,000 book of the

year prize will be chosen. Let's have a look at the runners.

The winner of the novel prize is Kate Atkinson for A God In Ruins,

the story of a World War II bomber pilot. Her earlier novel, life after

life, one the same prize in 2013. The two books about stand-alone

books and you don't need to read one to be the other end of the group

would be very interested countries separately rather than thinking of

this as a sort of sequel, but for me, because they knew I was going to

write the story of Teddy, who is a child. I always had in my head.

The first novel prize has gone to Andrew Hurley for The Loney, a

modern Gothic tale of the supernatural set on the bleak shores

of Morecambe Bay. Every year on the local news there

are stories of ships being lost and people drowning. I found that it was

a landscape that really retained that kind of memory. The was a sense

of darkness there. And as far as I knew no one has really written about

that every addiction before saw as a writer it was the quick fresh.

The biography prizewinner is Andrea Wulf for The Invention of Nature. It

is about a largely forgotten hero of 19th-century science.

He is not disagreeable scholar who sits in his study. He goes out and

he understands mountains. He climbs the Andes free sample and then

compares them to the Pyrenees in Spain and the Alps in Switzerland.

Subjects in this kind of global vision of nature and he's really the

first to talk about nature as one of global patterns who talks about

global vegetation, global climates, which is something no one had done

before. The poetry prize has gone to Don

Paterson for his collection 40 Sonnets. Patterson won this prize

will way back in 2003. The first time it was awarded.

Broadly as a dedicated readership but it is quite small and the nice

thing about prices is at least for individual books, occasionally, it

gives them the opportunity to break out of that circle a little bit.

You're always very grateful for the book and the extra publicity which

occurs as a result of this. The children's book winner is The

Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge. Originally I was not certain where I

was going to put my idea of The Lie Tree, this plant that feeds on lies

and then produces fruit which you can eat in order to learn the

secret. At first I was thinking of putting it in some fantasy world but

were never tried to think within those terms the idea be rattling

around loose in it. It was only when I actually thought of it in terms of

a historic setting that clicked into place. And that I realised where it

belonged that started to develop a certain emotional power.

Well, those are the five runners and riders. And we're about, I think, to

get the presentation of the cheque to the Costa biography award winner.

You can see those interviews in full on BBC News website in the

entertainment section. Now to talk about the books I am joined by

Stephanie Merritt who is an author herself writing historical

thrillers. What you think about these books question let's talk

about Kate Atkinson? This novel and her predecessor,

which won in 2013, think represent an extraordinary literary

achievement for Kate Atkinson. This one has the edge. I think it is an

absolutely phenomenal evocation of decades of post-war British light.

There was a very clever game that she is playing with the reader

inside the novel. As it reads straightforwardly it is just a

beautifully written story of wartime heroism and men, or quieter domestic

heroism that follow after the war. Do the kidneys to be read alongside

its companion piece, the winner of two years ago?

No, I think it can absolutely stand-alone. It can even be read

before. A big one should read this one you will want to go back to life

after life. It is less obviously tricksy and there is a less obvious

conceit at the heart of it than the previous one but a deal is the same

characters, so for people who have read the first one it is this very

enjoyable continuation of the lives of these characters we've already

got to know. Andrew Michael Hurley, The Loney,

extraordinary sense about us in this book.

It is a very gripping Gothic novel. It reminds me of some of Susan

Hill's biting. Yes extraordinary gift for evoking a very unnerving

spirit of place in this bleak and desolate coastline. It is a story.

But a lot of the elements I think things that we've seen before in

first doubles but think you're dealing in the Gothic then you

necessarily going to be dealing with cliches.

He doesn't camp it up, that's it? Yes, it's really a story about

family as much as it is about the supernatural. As of the natural

elements harbour the edge but it is as much a novel about family and the

tensions in the family and a group of very devout believers believing

to struggle with their base. Andrea Wulf going up behind us to

get her cheque as winner of the biography prize.

Frances Hardinge another exercise in Gothic and is of an actual menace.

This is a wonderful book and a real discovery for me. This is exactly

the kind of fiction I would've loved to be reading as a young teenager.

It is also notably the only book that has got a young woman at the

heart of it as the central character and she deals with all kinds of

elements, Victorian, science, fantasies, it is a detective novel

and echoes of Susan Cooper's novels in the coastal setting an element of

magic she weaves into it and she is a suburb writer.

What about the poetry? Always difficult for Poti to win an award

like this from competition? Don Paterson is a great craftsman

and it feels like he threatens other challenge with this perhaps most

traditional and most familiar poetic form and what he has done within

that is fascinating. Some of them are very funny, some of them barely

count as Sonnets at all. Often the more traditional ones are the ones

he pocketed that he has got politics, love, death, and there is

an Amal is to the TV series house. These help sell books and only is

that more than a poet. The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf, the winner

of the biography prize. Extraordinary in that this man has

been largely forgotten by being the speaking was -- English speaking

world. His influence on other thinkers and writers and scientists

whose names are more familiar to us. There are these wonderful

digressions she goes on the creates a portrait of the age that he lived

not just in his life. We're about to be told who the

winner is. Good evening ladies and gentlemen.

Can I start of the half of the judges by congratulating all of the

five category winners and thanking them for the enormous entertainment

they gave us, not just this evening, but over the past two months reading

their books. We have flown in from the darkest Orinoco, to the Channel

Islands, fire a Halifax bomber, stopping briefly at a bleak bay in

Northumberland and Dundee City Council. And it has been an

exhilarating ride a thing for all of us. So these are five amazing books.

Andrew Michael Hurley's The Loney, Kate Atkinson's a god in Andrea

Wulf's The Invention of Nature, Don Paterson's 40 Sonnets, and Frances

Hardinge's The Lie Tree. So congratulations to all of them and

congratulations also not just to tonight's judges but all the

category judges were doing this fantastic sieving process of 638

books down to the final five. And thank you to cost for continuing to

support this very important prize. It was started in 1971 when I was

14, when David Barry was wondering if there was life on Mars, -- David

Bowie, and I was on was big and frightening the definitely over

there. If you could remember this, you could not buy a book that first

getting a ticket. How will the world has changed, but what has not

changed is that great writing are still coming through, as is great

publishing. You only have to look at the covers of these great books to

see that as the case. It will continue to be this way, if I may

make this plea, providing that we go on an understanding that every

organism needs writing. Monocultures are destroying and book-selling

function desires the greatest variety that we shall all support.

And a message to book-sellers, this is your prize. There is something

for everybody here so feel your boots not just with the winner but

with the short list as well. And tell us who the winner is, may now

hand over. And the winner of the 2015 Costa

Book Of The Year is... The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge.

APPLAUSE Thank you very much. I am now going

to try and remember this speech that I was told to prepare but I thought

I was not going to need. Have you seen those films where there is a

dream sequence, because what is happening to the character is too

perfect and at the point where they realise that they are able to break

out of it. I'm trying not to realise how implausible doses because I like

this dream sequence and I would like to keep it. I will run quickly into

a quick Oscar speech. I would like to thank my agent, who is not here.

I would like to thank McMillan for taking chances on all my synopses,

which when I pitched them sounded completely mad. The Lie Tree was not

an exception, although perhaps less mad than others. I would like to

thank my writers groups and my friend and many other people,

certainly my long-suffering and patient boyfriend, Martin, who is

here and does not like attention. Thank you very much and thank you to

the judges for allowing a children's book to get it. It is a fantastic

time to be writing children's fiction. It is thoroughly exciting.

For those people who may be hearing this that think that children's

fiction is not the thing, please do explore it, there is a beautiful

jungle out there. Thank you all very much.

Frances Hardinge there. An unexpected winner to herself and

many other people. As she said, children's books do not often win

prizes like this. I children's book has only won this prize once before,

that was in 2002 with the Amber Spyglass. She is in good company.

She has learned something from Terry Pratchett about the importance of

branding if you are a writer for children and she is never seen in

public without that hat. This is the winning book, The Lie Tree. It is

about a tree that you feed by telling lies to and in exchange you

get to learn the secrets of the world. The judges said it was a

great story with fabulous characters and the likely message, the message

is that girls and boys can be scientists. The heroine is a very

intelligent girl, her father is a distinguished scientist, but no one

believes that she can be a scientist. This is a book that

stands up for women and young girls and the education of girls and

giving them opportunities. Are you pleased that this book one? I am

delighted. I was rooting for Kate Atkinson, because I loved her book.

There is a sense that the children's book is not on a level playing field

with the others, but I was so struck by what an extraordinary writer she

is, she's very sophisticated, Frances Hardinge, and this is

beautifully written. It does not read like a children's book, it is

very sophisticated, it is a novel of ideas and I think it is an exciting

winner. It is lovely to see those categories exploded. She taught

there about children and young adult's fiction -- she talked there.

I would say this is aimed at young teenagers rather than children. It

is a grown-up book, isn't it? The main character is 14, but I think

what she has in common with Philip Pullman is that she does not rate

down to children. There is quite complicated scientific research and

quite complex history and politics in the book. There is no sense that

she's oversimplifying for a younger audience I think that is inspiring

for younger readers. I learned a lot about attitudes to devolution,

religion and so on in the 19 century. -- evolution. She said was

that the time when Darwin and his ideas were gaining currency. There

is a wonderful crossover rate the historical detail is spot-on and she

has done a lot of research into palaeontology and the methods of

these fossil hunters. There is also an element of fantasy in magic. Her

historical setting is absolutely plausible, therefore young people

will learn from it. Thank you. Earlier this month I spoke to

Frances Hardinge, as I did to all the authors, and this is what we had

to say. Frances Hardinge, this is a good story if nothing else. Give us

a brief outline of the plot. It is set in the mid-19th century on a

fictional channel island where a family has just arrived fleeing

scandal. The father is a natural scientist and his daughter, Faith,

who is 14, is passionately interested in science, but is the

middle of the 19 century and she is a girl. After her father dies she is

the only person convinced that he has been murdered and she begins to

investigate and then she discovers that one of his specimens is a tree

that according to his notes feeds on lies. Let us stop there for fear of

spoiling it. There are exciting events that Faith gets involved in.

One of the things that makes it appealing is the stuff about

science, religion, approaches to evolution in the 19 century, and the

plight of an intelligent young woman in Victorian times who was trapped.

There was no way that I could not address the question of gender while

writing this book. I had this young girl who was passionate about

science and she's going to run into rejection and obstacles at every

turn. That is something I personally feel angry about. I consider

education for girls to be an incredibly important issue globally.

One of my bees came out of its bonnet for a little buzz there. She

is very angry. Is that you reflecting the mindset of the

average teenager or are you trying to exploit something darker at the

Faith and her approach to life? She has a lot of suppressed anger as she

does have a dark side and that is something which is explored. I like

complicated heroes and heroines that have that element to them and quite

a lot of my protagonists are angry in different ways, although they

don't always immediately realise it. This is different from some of your

earlier books because it is set in a defined above historical period, not

in an alternative world that you have created. What is the appeal of

something that is rooted in historical actuality? I was not

certain where I was going to put my idea of the tree that feeds on lies

and then produces fruits that you can eat alone a secret. I was

thinking about putting it in a fantasy world but when I try to

think about it in those terms the idea was just rattling around. It

was only when I thought of it in terms of the historic setting that

it clicked into place and I will I swear it belonged and it developed

an emotional power. There is a passage after her father has died

when the household has gone into mourning and you talk about the

clocks being stopped. As she stopped the clocks she said that she felt

like a murderer, it was the house of the dead now, these phrases I have

picked out. You are not one of those writers who strikes out the purple

passages. No, I have a long-standing love affair with language. I do

strike out purple passages, it is just that quite a lot are left. Our

metaphors hunt in packs and they stop, so that is the whistle down

version. Frances Hardinge, thank you very much indeed. Frances Hardinge

joins me now. Congratulations. You sounded dumbfounded to have one.

That was not trained. I still am. I am in a state of shock. I was not

expecting that. You are in good company, although one children's

author has won the prize before and that is Philip Pullman, one of the

giants of children's literature. Are you in all? Completely. Being in

that company is utterly extraordinary. It really has not

sunk in yet. It is very good news. You get a very large cheque and it

is going to do wonders for your sales. Is that important to you? Do

you hope to reach a wider audience? I think every author hopes to reach

a wider audience. Every author hopes that whatever they write will be

read and hopefully lots and enjoy its hour it will be helpful to

somebody. UID chair of the judges and nine if you met this afternoon.

Was it a unanimous choice? It was not unanimous and all of the books

had their champions but in the end it was consensual. What is the

difference between consensual... It means it had a lot of champions but

everybody thought that it was very good. There was consensus across all

of us thinking it was a fantastic, worthy winner. What was it about

this particular book, about Frances Hardinge's The Lie Tree, what was

it? classic story and a page turner. It

has a central brilliant idea of a tree that feeds of people's lies and

this central heroine called Faith, who is 14-year-old girl in the

Victorian era and with all of the challenges of that if you are

intelligent with a scientific brain. So it is about her struggle with

that and how she goes on to solve a fascinating detective story. Is that

what you get above the other children's books? It is dealing with

some quite serious issues like the education of women and they troubled

the Victorians had coming to terms with the theory of revolution. It

was the marriage of not just great story and characterisation that the

central important message and I think any 14-year-old, I think it is

a book for women and children, which is the age of the heroine, would

find each amend this amount to identify with today. Frances

Hardinge, this is not your first novel and you were very

accomplished. How will this change in approach to what you do? It will

change the way that I write. Will it change the kind of books that you

write? Probably not. My books are quite different. I like after

finishing his challenge going on to something completely different. I

will probably continue writing the way that I do. I do not know how

else to write. Frances Hardinge, my congratulations. Thank you for your

time. We must let you go and have a glass of champagne. Thank you very

much. The winner of Costa Book Awards is Frances Hardinge's The Lie

Tree. We will hand you back to the