Sebastian Barry’s The Secret Scripture won the 2008 Costa Book of the Year (formerly the Whitbread Prize) at an award ceremony held in London last night. Awards had already been given for books in many categories, including First Book, Novel, Biography, Poetry and Childrens’, before the novel by the Irish writer was named as the overall winner, the best of the bunch so to speak, for the year. Reading the story’s outline about an old woman about to released from an Irish mental institution after years of incarceration, possibly for the flimsiest of reasons, reminds me of The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell – and so another book is added to my ‘must read’ list…