Costa Book Awards 2007: Complete list of winners

The 2007 Costa Book Awards season delivered some genuinely surprising victories, with Catherine O’Flynn’s debut What Was Lost emerging as a standout in the fiercely competitive First Novel category. The judges clearly favored bold, distinctive voices across the board—A.L. Kennedy’s philosophical meditation Day claimed the Novel prize, while Jean Sprackland’s Tilt brought an inventive energy to the Poetry award. These wins suggested a year when the Costa Book Awards (formerly known as the Whitbread Book Awards) were celebrating writers willing to take formal and thematic risks, rather than following well-trodden literary paths.

Beyond the major fiction categories, the 2007 Costa Book Awards showcased the breadth of contemporary British and Commonwealth publishing. Simon Sebag Montefiore’s ambitious biography Young Stalin won the Biography prize, establishing itself as a significant work of historical scholarship, while Ann Kelley’s The Bower Bird captured hearts in the Children’s Book category. This particular year felt like a demonstration of the awards’ strength: they managed to honor serious historical writing, experimental fiction, and remarkable debuts all within the same season.

Below, you’ll find the complete breakdown of the 2007 Costa Book Awards winners across all categories.

Biography

• Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Children’s Book

• The Bower Bird by Ann Kelley

First Novel

• What Was Lost by Catherine O’Flynn

Novel

• Day by A.L. Kennedy

Poetry

• Tilt by Jean Sprackland