A Good Man in Africa, The New Confessions, Brazzaville Beach - the list of truly wonderful books is a long one. Not to mention how he got the artistic world in rather a tizz some years ago with his biography of "Nat Tate", an influential American artist… who happened not to exist. Not everyone got the joke at first. Top marks.

So I was pleased to see him take the Costa Novel Award for his latest book, Restless - and see him cap a good couple of weeks, since the book's just been chosen by Richard & Judy, too.

It remains to be seen, of course, whether he'll take the overall prize; for the Costa, of course, keeps the Whitbread somewhat eccentric structure of pitting biography against poetry, children's books against novels, for it's final prize.

Boyd, one would have to say, is this year's most mainstream choice; one senses (and did even at the shortlist stage) something of the new broom about the selections the judges have made. It's not that Seamus Heaney ought to win every award he's put up for… he's just a tough poet to beat.

May the best book win? That's always especially hard to say where this award is concerned, since the comparisons seem invidious. And yet there's a winner every year - and one can only be glad that Costa has picked up the baton that Whitbread dropped.

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