The Costa Book Awards are a set of annual literary awards recognising English-language books by writers based in Britain and Ireland. The awards are given both for high literary merit but also for works that are enjoyable reading and whose aim is to convey the enjoyment of reading to the widest possible audience. As such, they are a more populist literary prize than the Booker Prize.

• 2000
  • First Novel Award: Zadie Smith, White Teeth
  • Novel Award: Matthew Kneale, English Passengers
  • Poetry Award: John Burnside, The Asylum Dance
  • Biography Award: Lorna Sage, Bad Blood – A Memoir
• 2001
  • First Novel Award – Sid Smith, Something Like A House
  • Novel Award – Patrick Neate, Twelve Bar Blues
  • Poetry Award – Selima Hill, Bunny
  • Biography Award – Diana Souhami, Selkirk’s Island
• 2002
  • First Novel Award – Norman Lebrecht, The Song of Names
  • Novel Award – Michael Frayn, Spies
  • Poetry Award – Paul Farley, The Ice Age
  • Biography Award – Claire Tomalin, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self
• 2003
  • First Novel Award – DBC Pierre, Vernon God Little
  • Novel Award – Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
  • Poetry Award – Don Paterson, Landing Light
  • Biography Award – DJ Taylor, Orwell: The Life
• 2004
  • First Novel Award – Susan Fletcher, Eve Green
  • Novel Award – Andrea Levy, Small Island
  • Poetry Award – Michael Symmons Roberts, Corpus
  • Biography Award – John Guy, My Heart Is My Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots
• 2005
  • First Novel Award – Tash Aw, The Harmony Silk Factory
  • Novel Award – Ali Smith, The Accidental
  • Poetry Award – Christopher Logue, Cold Calls
  • Biography Award – Hilary Spurling, Matisse the Master
• 2006
  • First Novel Award – Stef Penney, The Tenderness of Wolves
  • Novel Award — William Boyd, Restless
  • Poetry Award — John Haynes, Letter to Patience
  • Biography Award — Brian Thompson, Keeping Mum
• 2007
  • First Novel Award – Catherine O’Flynn, What Was Lost
  • Novel Award — A.L. Kennedy, Day
  • Poetry Award — Jean Sprackland, Tilt
  • Biography Award — Simon Sebag Montefiore, Young Stalin
• 2008
  • First Novel Award — Sadie Jones, The Outcast
  • Novel Award — Sebastian Barry, The Secret Scripture
  • Poetry Award — Adam Foulds, The Broken Word
  • Biography Award — Diana Athill, Somewhere Towards the End
• 2009
  • First Novel Award — Raphael Selbourne, Beauty
  • Novel Award — Colm Tóibin, Brooklyn
  • Poetry Award — Christopher Reid, A Scattering
  • Biography Award — Graham Farmelo, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius
• 2010
  • First Novel Award — Kishwar Desai, Witness the Night
  • Novel Award — Maggie O’Farrell, The Hand That First Held Mine
  • Poetry Award — Jo Shapcott, Of Mutability
  • Biography Award — Edmund de Waal, The Hare with Amber Eyes
• 2011
  • First Novel Award — Christie Watson, Tiny Sunbirds Far Away
  • Novel Award — Andrew Miller, Pure
  • Poetry Award — Carol Ann Duffy, The Bees
  • Biography Award — Matthew Hollis, Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas
• 2012
  • First Novel Award — Francesca Segal, The Innocents
  • Novel Award — Hilary Mantel, Bring up the Bodies
  • Poetry Award — Kathleen Jamie, The Overhaul
  • Biography Award — Mary Talbot and Bryan Talbot, Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes
  • Short Story Award — Avril Joy, “Millie and Bird”
• 2013
  • Novel Award — Kate Atkinson, Life after Life
  • Poetry Award — Michael Symmons Roberts, Drysalter
  • Best First Novel — Nathan Filer, The Shock of the Fall
  • Biography Award — Lucy Hughes-Hallet, The Pike
  • Short Story Award – Angela Readman, “The Keeper of the Jackalopes”
• 2014
  • Novel Award — Ali Smith, How to be Both
  • Poetry Award — Jonathan Edwards, My Family and Other Superheroes
  • First Novel Award — Emma Healey, Elizabeth is Missing
  • Biography Award — Helen Macdonald, H is for Hawk
• 2015
  • Novel Award - Kate Atkinson, A God In Ruins
  • First Novel Award - Andrew Michel Hurley, The Lonely
  • Poetry Award - Don Paterson, 40 Sonnets
  • Biography Award - Andrea Wulf, The Invention of Nature
  • Short Story Award - Danny Murphy, Rogey
• 2016
  • Novel Award - Sebastian Barry, Days Without End
  • First Novel Award - Frances Spufford, Golden Hill
  • Poetry Award - Alice Oswald, Falling Awake
  • Biography Award - Keggie Carew, Dadland: A Journey into Uncharted Territory
  • Short Story Award - Jess Kidd, Dirty Little Fishes