Yorkshire professor, 61, scoops poetry award

If Christopher Reid wins later this month it will be only the sixth time a collection of poems has taken one of the top prizes in literature.

But the professor in creative writing at the University of Hull will find it hard to beat bookies' favourite, Colm Toibin for his novel Brooklyn.

Hong Kong-born Prof Reid, 61, picked up the Poetry Award for A Scattering, a tribute to his wife Lucinda Gane following her death in October 2005, having been nominated twice in previous years.

Bookmaker William Hill has given Prof Reid odds of 4/1, making him third favourite behind Toibin and debut biographer Graham Farmelo for his book on quantum mechanics pioneer Paul Dirac in The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius.

In other Costa Book Awards categories, Patrick Ness won the Children's Book Award for The Ask and the Answer (Chaos Walking: Book Two), described by judges as a "dazzlingly imagined, morally complex, compulsively plotted tale".

The five winners receive 5,000 each and the overall winner, who will receive a further 30,000, will be announced at a ceremony in London on January 26.