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Awards presented to Shapcott, Walcott, and book apps

There’s been a flurry of book award activity over the past few days (take that, Academy Awards). The awards in this roundup range from the time-honoured and prestigious to the trendy and cutting edge.

Costa Book of the Year Award
Costa Book Awards named Jo Shapcott’s poetry collection Of Mutability (Faber & Faber) its Book of the Year. The U.K. award culls its shortlist from winners across five categories: first novel, novel, biography, poetry, and children’s book. The 2010 shortlist also featured Witness the Night, a first novel by Kishwar Desai; The Hand That First Held Mine, a novel by Maggie O’Farrel; The Hare with Amber Eyes, a memoir by Edmund de Waal; and Out of Shadows, a children’s book by first-time author Jason Wallace. Shapcott receives £25,000; the winner in each category receives £5,000.

T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry
Also based out of the U.K., the Poetry Book Society awarded the T.S. Eliot Prize to Derek Walcott for White Egrets (Faber & Faber). Walcott, 81, is a Nobel laureate and currently serves as distinguished scholar in residence at the University of Alberta.

The £15,000 prize is given annually to the author of the best new poetry collection published in the U.K. or Ireland. Anne Stevenson, chair of the judging panel, described Walcott’s collection as a moving, risk-taking and technically flawless book by a great poet.” Also included on the shortlist were Sam Willetts, Seamus Heaney, and Pascal Petit.

Publishing Innovation Awards
Digital Book World opened last night in New York City by handing out the first-ever Publishing Innovation Awards for e-books and apps. The winners are selected based on their merits in the areas of origination, development, production, design, and marketing.

The inaugural winners are:

Fiction:  DRACULA: The Official Stoker Family Edition (PadWorx Digital Media)
Non-fiction: Logos Bible Software (Logos Bible Software)
Children’s:  A Story Before Bed (Jackson Fish Market)
Reference:  Star Walk for iPad (Vito Technology)
Comics: Robot 13 (Robot Comics)