What was the best book you read last year?

In the musty old bookworld, prizes are terribly exciting. Yes, book awards will never reach the world-televised-designer-frock-paraded-on-red-carpet level of the Oscars, but any keen bookish person was waiting with baited breath for the announcement of the Costa Book of the Year last Tuesday night.

The Costa Prize was the acme of literary excitement of the year so far. (Granted, we’re only a month in.) It has been the hub of excited discussions both in bookshops and across the literary press. So I thought it only fitting to join the fray.

I’ll come right out and say it. I am sick to death of reading the endless whines about the silliness or eccentricity of the prize for making the judges pick a winner across genres. Pretty much everyone, with no thought for the unoriginality of their quibble, argues along the lines of: How can a biography possibly be compared to a novel? Who could compare a collection of poetry to a children’s book? Even (my hero) Robert McCrum in the Observer called it ‘an