Three British authors, one Irish on Costa prize fiction shortlist

LONDON (Reuters) - Novels by three British authors and one Irish writer have made the four-book fiction shortlist for the 2015 Costa Book Awards, the prize committee announced on Tuesday. The British writers on the list are Kate Atkinson for "A God in Ruins", Patrick Gale for "A Place Called Winter" and Melissa Harrison for "At Hawthorn Time". Irish novelist Anne Enright is nominated for "The Green Road". The Costa book awards, which honour authors living in Great Britain or Ireland, also give prizes for best first novel, biography, poetry and children's book. The author of the top book selected in each category receives a 5,000-pound ($7,600) prize while the winner of the overall Costa Book of the Year receives 30,000 pounds. The winners will be announced on Jan 4. Since the awards were founded in 1985, the top prize has gone to a novel 11 times, to a biography six times, to a poetry collection seven times and to a children's book once. The nominees in the other categories are as follows: First Novel Sara Baume for "Spill Simmer Falter Wither" Kate Hamer for "The Girl in the Red Coat" Andrew Michael Hurley for "The Loney" Tasha Kavanagh for "Things We Have in Common" Biography Robert Douglas-Fairhurst for "The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland" Thomas Harding for "The House by the Lake" Ruth Scurr for "John Aubrey: My Own Life" Andrea Wulf for "The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science" Poetry Andrew McMillan for "Physical" Kate Miller for "The Observances" Don Paterson for "40 Sonnets" Neil Rollinson for "Talking Dead" Children’s Book Frances Hardinge for "The Lie Tree" Hayley Long for "Sophie Someone" Sally Nicholls for "An Island of Our Own" Andrew Norriss for "Jessica’s Ghost" (Editing by Michael Roddy and Raissa Kasolowsky)