The sponsors of the Costa (originally the Whitbread) Book Awards, one of the most imaginatively structured book prizes, have just announced that, after fifty years, these awards would cease to exist.
No one has to sponsor any sort of prize, of course, and if they do, they can set it up in any way they like. If they can’t afford to sustain it, or if they just change their minds, there can be no blame attaching to them if they want to abandon it. It does seem worth explaining, though, why this particular prize was so important and so highly valued by the book world in general.
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