Page 3 - Names Given News Today

Here are the 20 fantastic books shortlisted for the coveted book award.

With the 'book of the year' winner to be announced on February 1, the Costa Book Awards will name its 2021 winner in 2022.

Ten collections in competition for the £25,000 award ‘should enter the stage and be heard in the spotlight’, say judges

With a cover designed by Phoebe Boswell, Raymond Antrobus’s new poetry collection All The Names Given is now available for pre-ordering. All the Names Given will be published on September 2, 2021. [Looking forward to an interview about the book in the Poetry Foundation’s “Poetry Off the Shelf” podcast, which will soon be available.] Description (from…

I’m watching all this              through Simon Armitage I was just about the busiest I’d ever been when lockdown arrived, so it was a huge change, and some of that’s been quite good for me. I’ve slowed down, I’ve caught up with a lot of deadlines. But from a creative point of view, everything has just become a little bit overfamiliar. I’ve written three poems about my Velux window. And there’s probably more to come. Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Guardian “The Sky Stretched...

Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth by Wole Soyinka (Bloomsbury) The Nobel laureate’s first novel in almost 50 years promises “murder, mayhem and no shortage of drama” in contemporary Nigeria. The Thursday Murder Club 2 by Richard Osman (Viking) Last year the Pointless co-host’s cosy crime debut set in a retirement home broke sales records; here comes the sequel. Waters of Salvation by Richard Coles (W&N) A new crime series from everyone’s favourite vicar begins ...

Books to look out for in 2021 Irish fiction New work that has been a long time coming generates a particular shiver of anticipation. Small Things Like These (Faber, October) will be Claire Keegan’s first new work since her novella Foster, still a bestseller 10 years on. Her publisher says: “An exquisite wintery parable, Claire Keegan’s long-awaited return tells the story of a simple act of courage and tenderness, in the face of conformity, fear and judgment.” Small Things Like These...