Used, New, and Out of Print Books - We Buy and Sell - Powell's Books
Cart |
Hello, | Login
MENU
  • Browse
    • New Arrivals
    • Bestsellers
    • Featured Preorders
    • Award Winners
    • Audio Books
    • See All Subjects
  • Used
  • Staff Picks
    • Staff Picks
    • Picks of the Month
    • Bookseller Displays
    • 50 Books for 50 Years
    • 25 Best 21st Century Sci-Fi & Fantasy
    • 25 PNW Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books From the 21st Century
    • 25 Memoirs to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Global Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Women to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books to Read Before You Die
  • Gifts
    • Gift Cards & eGift Cards
    • Powell's Souvenirs
    • Journals and Notebooks
    • socks
    • Games
  • Sell Books
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Find A Store
Awards » Costa-Book-of-the-Year

2019 Winner of the Costa Book of the Year

Cover Image for The Volunteer by Jack Fairweather

The Volunteer

by Jack Fairweather

The incredible true story of a Polish resistance fighter's infiltration of Auschwitz to sabotage the camp from within, and his death-defying attempt to warn the Allies about the Nazis' plans for a "Final Solution" before it was too late.

To uncover the fate of the thousands being interred at a mysterious Nazi camp on the border of the Reich, a 39-year-old Polish resistance fighter named Witold Pilecki volunteered for an audacious mission: assume a fake identity, intentionally get captured and sent to the new camp, and then report back to the underground on what had happened to his compatriots there. But gathering information was not his only task: he was to execute an attack from inside — where the Germans would least expect it.

The name of the camp was Auschwitz. 

Over the next two and half years, Pilecki forged an underground army within Auschwitz that sabotaged facilities, assassinated Nazi informants and officers, and gathered evidence of terrifying abuse and mass murder. But as he pieced together the horrifying truth that the camp was to become the epicenter of Nazi plans to exterminate Europe's Jews, Pilecki realized he would have to risk his men, his life, and his family to warn the West before all was lost. To do so, meant attempting the impossible — an escape from Auschwitz itself.

Completely erased from the historical record by Poland's postwar Communist government, Pilecki remains almost unknown to the world. Now, with exclusive access to previously hidden diaries, family and camp survivor accounts, and recently declassified files, Jack Fairweather offers an unflinching portrayal of survival, revenge, and betrayal in mankind's darkest hour. And in uncovering the tragic outcome of Pilecki's mission, he reveals that its ultimate defeat originated not in Auschwitz or Berlin, but in London and Washington.

 

The Costa Book Awards are awarded each year in five categories: Novel, First Novel, Children's Book, Poetry, and Biography. From those winners, one is selected to be the Costa Book of the Year. Launched in 1971 as the Whitbread Literary Awards, they became the Whitbread Book Awards in 1985, with Costa taking over in 2006.

 

Filter Items

Award Year

  • 2019
  • 2018
  • 2017
  • 2016
  • 2015
  • 2014
  • 2013
  • 2012
  • 2011
  • 2010
  • 2009
  • 2008
  • 2007
  • 2006
  • 2005
  • 2004
  • 2003
  • 2002
  • 2001
  • 2000
  • 1999
  • 1998
  • 1997
  • 1996
  • 1995
  • 1994
  • 1993
  • 1992
  • 1991
  • 1990
  • 1989
  • 1988
  • 1987
  • 1986
  • 1985
  • 1984
  • 1983
  • 1982
  • 1981
  • 1980
  • 1979
  • 1978
  • 1977
  • 1976
  • 1975
  • 1974
  • 1973
  • 1972
  • 1971

Product Type

  • New (35)
  • Used (68)

Winners of the Costa Book Awards

Duration: 57 ms, Number of Items: 184

Grid List
1 2 3 4 Next Page 1 of 4
Compare up to 5 items
  1. Volunteer One Mans Mission to Lead an Underground Army Inside Auschwitz & Stop the Holocaust

    Volunteer One Mans Mission to Lead an Underground Army Inside Auschwitz & Stop the Holocaust

    by Jack Fairweather
    Used Hardcover
    $28.99
    $19.95
  2. Confessions of Frannie Langton

    Confessions of Frannie Langton

    by Sara Collins
    Used Hardcover
    $26.99
    $10.95
  3. Middle England

    Middle England

    by Jonathan Coe
     Hardcover
    Out of Stock
  4. Asha & the Spirit Bird

    Asha & the Spirit Bird

    by Jasbinder Bilan
     Hardcover
    Out of Stock
  5. Normal People: A Novel

    Normal People: A Novel

    by Sally Rooney
    Used Hardcover
    $27.00
    $12.95
  6. Cut Out Girl A Story of War & Family Lost & Found

    Cut Out Girl A Story of War & Family Lost & Found

    by Bart Van Es
    Used Hardcover
    $28.00
    $13.95
  7. The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

    The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

    by Stuart Turton
     Hardcover
    Out of Stock
  8. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine: A Novel

    Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine: A Novel

    by Gail Honeyman
    Used Hardcover
    $28.00
    $10.95
  9. Inside the Wave

    Inside the Wave

    by Helen Dunmore
    New Trade Paperback
    $15.95
  10. Reservoir 13: A Novel

    Reservoir 13: A Novel

    by Jon McGregor
    Used Trade Paperback
    $16.95
    $11.95
  11. In the Days of Rain A Daughter a Father a Cult

    In the Days of Rain A Daughter a Father a Cult

    by Rebecca Stott
    Used Hardcover
    $27.00
    $18.95
  12. The Explorer

    The Explorer

    by Katherine Rundell
    Used Hardcover
    $16.99
    $11.50
  13. Days Without End

    Days Without End

    by Sebastian Barry
    Used Hardcover
    $26.00
    $11.95
  14. Dadland

    Dadland

    by Keggie Carew
    Used Hardcover
    $26.00
    $11.95
  15. Golden Hill

    Golden Hill

    by Francis Spufford
    Used Hardcover
    $26.00
    $12.50
  16. Falling Awake Poems

    Falling Awake Poems

    by Alice Oswald
     Hardcover
    Out of Stock
  17. Bombs That Brought Us Together

    Bombs That Brought Us Together

    by Brian Conaghan
     Hardcover
    Out of Stock
  18. The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldts New World

    The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldts New World

    by Andrea Wulf
    Used Hardcover
    $35.00
    $16.95
  19. A God in Ruins

    A God in Ruins

    by Atkinson, Kate
    Used Hardcover
    $43.00
    $13.95
  20. How to Be Both

    How to Be Both

    by Ali Smith
    Used Trade Paperback
    $17.00
    $11.50
  21. Loney

    Loney

    by Andrew Michael Hurley
    Used Trade Paperback
    $14.99
    $7.95
  22. Lie Tree

    Lie Tree

    by Frances Hardinge
     Hardcover
    Out of Stock
  23. H Is For Hawk

    H Is For Hawk

    by Helen Macdonald
    Used Trade Paperback
    $16.00
    $10.95
  24. Five Children On the Western Front

    Five Children On the Western Front

    by Kate Saunders
    Used Hardcover
    $6.50
  25. Elizabeth Is Missing

    Elizabeth Is Missing

    by Emma Healey
     Hardcover
    Out of Stock
  26. Life After Life

    Life After Life

    by Kate Atkinson
    Used Trade Paperback
    $19.99
    $12.95
  27. Shock of the Fall A Novel

    Shock of the Fall A Novel

    by Nathan Filer
    Used Trade Paperback
    $16.99
    $10.95
  28. Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse: Volume 1

    Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse: Volume 1

    by Chris Riddell
     Trade Paperback
    Out of Stock
  29. Gabriele d'Annunzio: Poet, Seducer, and Preacher of War

    Gabriele d'Annunzio: Poet, Seducer, and Preacher of War

    by Lucy Hughes-Hallett
     Trade Paperback
    Out of Stock
  30. Bring Up the Bodies

    Bring Up the Bodies

    by Hilary Mantel
    Used Trade Paperback
    $18.00
    $11.95
  31. Maggot Moon

    Maggot Moon

    by Sally Gardner, Julian Crouch
    Used Trade Paperback
    $9.99
    $6.50
  32. Innocents

    Innocents

    by Francesca Segal
     Hardcover
    Out of Stock
  33. Overhaul

    Overhaul

    by Kathleen Jamie
     Trade Paperback
    Out of Stock
  34. Dotter of Her Fathers Eyes

    Dotter of Her Fathers Eyes

    by Mary M Talbot
     Hardcover
    Out of Stock
  35. Dust Lands 01 Blood Red Road

    Dust Lands 01 Blood Red Road

    by Young, Moira
    Used Trade Paperback
    $12.99
    $6.95
  36. Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away

    Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away

    by Christie Watson
    Used Trade Paperback
    $19.95
    $10.50
  37. Pure

    Pure

    by Andrew Miller
    Used Trade Paperback
    $17.00
    $8.95
  38. The Bees

    The Bees

    by Carol Ann Duffy
     Hardcover
    Out of Stock
  39. Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas

    Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas

    by Matthew Hollis
     Hardcover
    Out of Stock
  40. Hare With Amber Eyes

    Hare With Amber Eyes

    by Edmund de Waal
    Used Trade Paperback
    $18.00
    $10.95
  41. The Hand That First Held Mine

    The Hand That First Held Mine

    by Maggie O'Farrell
    Used Trade Paperback
    $19.99
    $8.98
  42. Witness the Night

    Witness the Night

    by Kishwar Desai
     Trade Paperback
    Out of Stock
  43. Out of Shadows

    Out of Shadows

    by Jason Wallace
     Hardcover
    Out of Stock
  44. Chaos Walking 02 Ask & the Answer

    Chaos Walking 02 Ask & the Answer

    by Patrick Ness
    Used Trade Paperback
    $9.99
    $6.95
  45. Brooklyn

    Brooklyn

    by Colm Toibin
    Used Trade Paperback
    $18.00
    $11.95
  46. Strangest Man The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac Quantum Genius

    Strangest Man The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac Quantum Genius

    by Graham Farmelo
     Trade Paperback
    Out of Stock
  47. Scattering

    Scattering

    by Christopher Reid
     Trade Paperback
    Out of Stock
  48. Beauty

    Beauty

    by Raphael Selbourne
     Trade Paperback
    Out of Stock
  49. Somewhere Towards The End

    Somewhere Towards The End

    by Diana Athill
    Used Trade Paperback
    $15.95
    $3.50
  50. Secret Scripture

    Secret Scripture

    by Sebastian Barry
    New Trade Paperback
    $18.00
Grid List
1 2 3 4 Next Page 1 of 4
Compare up to 5 items
  • Help
  • Guarantee
  • My Account
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Security
  • Wish List
  • Partners
  • Contact Us
  • Shipping
  • Transparency ACT MRF
  • Sitemap
  • © 2023 POWELLS.COM Terms