Carol Ann Duffy, the Poet Laureate born in Gorbals, Glasgow, is in the running to win Book of the Year for her latest poetry collection, The Bees.
Ms Duffy has recently won the Costa Poetry Award and has now been added to the shortlist for the prestigious Book of the Year award.
The Scottish poet has been given odds of 3/1 and so has novelist Andrew Miller for his book, Pure. Matthew Hollis is the favourite for his biography of Edward Thomas entitled Now All Roads Lead to France.
Moira Young won the children’s book award for Blood Red Road and Christie Watson, writer of Tiny Sunbirds Far Away, won the First Novel award.
The Book of the Year award was originally established in 1971 by Whitbread until the sponsorship was taken over by Costa in 2006.
The Bees is the first collection of poems that Ms Duffy has released after she was named Poet Laureate in 2009.
The five Costa Book Award winners were selected from 568 entries and each winner will receive £5,000. The winner of overall book of the year will be given a further £30,000. The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony on 24th January in London.
The judges noted that The Bees saw Duffy using “her full poetic range”: “There are drinking songs, love poems, poems to the weather, poems of political anger – there are elegies, too, for beloved friends and most movingly, the poet’s own mother. We were thrilled by the poet’s musical feeling for language and her spellbinding ability to combine naturalness and formal complexity. It’s a joyful collection.”
Managing director of Costa, John Derkach, said: “We’re very proud to be announcing such a terrific collection of books which we know people will enjoy reading.”