Costa Biography Award

Costa Biography Award
2017
Winner
In the Days of Rain by Rebecca Stott

Shortlist
Once Upon a Time in the East: A Story of Growing Up by Xiaolu Guo
A Bold and Dangerous Family: The Rossellis and the Fight Against Mussolini by Caroline Moorehead
Fragile Lives by Professor Stephen Westaby

2016
Winner

Dadland: A Journey into Uncharted Territory by Keggie Carew

Shortlist
Elizabeth: The Forgotten Years by John Guy
The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land In Between by Hisham Matar
I'm Not With the Band: A Writer's Life lost in Music by Sylvia Patterson

2015
Winner

The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander Von Humboldt, The Lost Hero of Science by Andrea Wulf

Shortlist
The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst
The House by the Lake by Thomas Harding
John Aubrey: My Own Life by Ruth Scurr

2014
Winner

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald *

Shortlist
Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded Life by John Campbell
The Iceberg: A Memoir by Marion Coutts
Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh

2013
Winner

The Pike: Gabriele D'Annunzio, Poet, Seducer and Preacher of War by Lucy Hughes-Hallett

Shortlist
Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence & Emperor Penguins by Gavin Francis
Hanns and Rudolf: The German Jew and the Hunt for the Kommandant of Auschwitz by Thomas Harding
The Trip to Echo Spring: Why Writers Drink by Olivia Laing

2012
Winner

Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes by Mary M Talbot & Bryan Talbot

Shortlist
Patrick Leigh-Fermor: An Adventure by Artemis Cooper
The Crocodile by the Door: The story of a house, a farm and a family by Selina Guinness
Serving Victoria: Life in the Royal Household by Kate Hubbard

2011
Winner

Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas by Matthew Hollis

Shortlist
Thin Paths: Journeys in and around a Mountain Village by Julia Blackburn
Henry’s Demons: Living with Schizophrenia (A Father and Son’s Story) by Patrick Cockburn & Henry Cockburn
Charles Dickens: A Life by Claire Tomalin

2010
Winner

The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal

Shortlist
How to live: A life of Montaigne in twenty questions and one attempt at an answer by Sarah Bakewell
My Father’s Fortune: A Life by Michael Frayn

2009
Winner

The Strangest Man – The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius by Graham Farmelo

Shortlist
The Music Room by William Fiennes
Coda by Simon Gray
Dancing to the Precipice by Caroline Moorehead

2008
Winner

Somewhere Towards the End by Diana Athill

Shortlist
Bloomsbury Ballerina by Judith Mackrell
If You Don’t Know Me By Now by Sathnam Sanghera
Chagall by Jackie Wullschlager

2007
Winner

Young Stalin by Simon Sebag-Montefiore

Shortlist Rudolf Nureyev by Julie Kavanagh Agent Zigzag by Ben Macintyre Fatty Batter by Michael Simkins

2006
Winner

Keeping Mum by Brian Thompson

Shortlist
George Mackay Brown – The Life by Maggie Fergusson
Donne: A Reformed Soul by John Stubbs
Nabeel’s Song by Jo Tatchell

Whitbread Biography Award

2005
Winner

Matisse: The Master by Hilary Spurling *

Shortlist
Haw-Haw: The Tragedy of William and Margaret Joyce by Nigel Farndale
Nature Cure by Richard Mabey
Stuart: A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters

2004
Winner

My Heart is My Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots by John Guy

Shortlist
Jabez: The Rise and Fall of a Victorian Rogue by David McKie
Stephen Spender by John Sutherland
V.S.Pritchett: A Life by Jeremy Treglown

2003
Winner

Orwell: The Life by DJ Taylor

Shortlist
Margaret Thatcher – Volume Two: The Iron Lady by John Campbell
Martha Gellhorn by Caroline Moorehead
Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith by Andrew Wilson

2002
Winner

Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self by Claire Tomalin *

Shortlist
Anthony Blunt: His Lives by Miranda Carter
The Real Mrs Miniver by Ysenda Maxtone Graham
Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA by Brenda Maddox

2001
Winner

Selkirk’s Island by Diana Souhami

Shortlist
A View of Delft by Anthony Bailey
Boswell’s Presumptuous Task by Adam Sisman
Flaubert: A Life by Geoffrey Wall

2000
Winner

Bad Blood by Lorna Sage

Shortlist
Fanny Burney by Claire Harman
John Ruskin: The Later Years by Tim Hilton
Hitler: 1936-45 Nemesis by Ian Kershaw

1999
Winner

Berlioz, Volume 2 by David Cairns

Shortlist
Bruce Chatwin by Nicholas Shakespeare
Matisse by Hilary Spurling

1998
Winner

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman

Shortlist
Iris, A memoir of Iris Murdoch by John Bayley
Hitler, Volume One Hubris 1889 – 1936 by Ian Kershaw

1997
Winner

Tales from Ovid by Ted Hughes *

Victor Hugo by Graham Robb

Shortlist
Violet: The Life and Loves of Violet Gordon Woodhouse by Jessica Douglas-Home
Queen of Whale Cay by Kate Summerscale
Citizen Lord by Stella Tillyard
Hogarth, A Life and a World by Jenny Uglow

1996
Winner

Thomas Cranmer: A Life by Diarmaid MacCulloch

Shortlist
George Eliot: A Life by Rosemary Ashton
The Unruly Queen: The Life of Queen Caroline by Flora Fraser
Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett by James Knowlson

1995
Winner

Gladstone by Roy Jenkins

Shortlist
Vera Brittain – A Life by Paul Berry & Mark Bostridge
Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth by Gitta Sereny
Terence Rattigan by Geoffrey Wansell

1994
Winner

DH Lawrence: The Married Man y Brenda Maddox

1993
Winner

Philip Larkin: A Writer’s Life by Andrew Motion

1992
Winner

Trollope by Victoria Glendinning

1991
Winner

A Life of Picasso by John Richardson *

1990
Winner

AA Milne: His Life by Ann Thwaite

1989
Winner

Coleridge: Early Visions by Richard Holmes *

1988
Winner

Tolstoy by AN Wilson

1987
Winner

Under the Eye of the Clock by Christopher Nolan *

1986
Winner

Gilbert White by Richard Mabey

1985
Winner

Hugh Dalton by Ben Pimlott

1984
Winner

TS Eliot by Peter Ackroyd

1983
Winners

Vita by Victoria Glendinning

King George V by Kenneth Rose

1982
Winner

Bismarck by Edward Crankshaw

1981
Winner

Monty: The Making of a General by Nigel Hamilton

1980
Winner

On the Edge of Paradise: AC Benson the Diarist by David Newsome

1979

Winner
About Time by Penelope Mortimer

1978
Winner

Lloyd George: The People's Champion by John Grigg

1977
Winner

Mary Curzon by Nigel Nicolson

1976
Winner

Elizabeth Gaskell by Winifred Gerin

1975 Whitbread Autobiography Award
Winner

In Our Infancy by Helen Corke

1974
Winner

Poor Dear Brendan by Andrew Boyle

1973
Winner

CB: A Life of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman by John Wilson

1972
Winner

Trollope by James Pope-Hennessy

1971
Winner

Henrik Ibsen by Michael Meyer

* Book of the Year