The Costa Book Awards 2012 Category Winners were announced on the second of January.  Joining a book club or starting one of your own is a good way to make friends and share experiences suggests Fi Ward. Why not select a title from the Costa novel or new novel shortlist to read and discuss with your group?

In 2012 for the first time ever, a female winner features in every category.

• Graphic memoir, The Overhaul
• First-time writer, Francesca Segal, claims the Costa First Novel Award for Maggot Moon
• Life! Death! Prizes! by Stephen May (Bloomsbury)
• Days of the Bagnold Summer by Joff Winterhart (Jonathan Cape)

Shortlist for the 2012 Costa First Novel Award

The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder by J W Ironmonger (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

The Innocents by Francesca Segal (Chatto & Windus)

The Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood (Simon & Schuster)

The five Costa Book Award winners, each of whom will receive £5,000, were selected from 550 entries. The five books are now eligible for the ultimate prize - the 2012 Costa Book of the Year.

The winner, selected by a panel of judges chaired by Dame Jenni Murray, and comprising Jenny Agutter, Katie Derham, Mark Watson, Sophie Ward, Wendy Holden, D.J. Taylor, Daljit Nagra and Marcus Sedgwick, will be announced at an awards ceremony hosted by presenter and broadcaster Penny Smith at Quaglino’s in central London on Tuesday 29th January 2013.

For additional information go to www.costabookawards.com

Learning a language or brushing up on your maths skills in your spare time can boost your life satisfaction in the same way as a £750 a year pay rise, according to new research.

That was one of the findings from research commissioned by the Government. Key findings of the research included;

• People who take an adult learning course, ranging from an art class to improving IT skills, have better health, are less likely to be depressed and visit their GP less regularly
• Those with poor basic skills tend to have worse health: for example, people who struggle with maths are three times more likely to have health problems
• Learning boosts self-confidence and raises people’s aspirations, with those taking part more likely to further their career and expect higher salaries
• People in their fifties and sixties also benefit, with learning offsetting a natural decline in wellbeing as we age

Skills Minister Matthew Hancock said, “This research shows how adult learning, whether it’s a course to further someone’s career or an evening class for enjoyment, has the potential to change lives for the better, whilst also creating a highly-skilled nation that will help businesses to get the skills they need to grow and boost our international competitiveness.”

If, as William Shakespeare wrote in As You Like It, "all the world's a stage", then UK must surely be hogging the spotlight this summer.

The World Shakespeare Festival, part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad, kicks off this month, aiming to tempt a new generation of fans into the world of one of the UK's most celebrated playwrights. Led by the Royal Shakespeare Company, the country-wide celebration will feature theatre companies from all over the world, presenting their own unique interpretations of the works of the bard.

Dust off your dancing shoes, Londoners: carnaval is coming to the UK! The Brazilian programme for the London 2012 Festival has been announced in Rio de Janeiro, and looks set to bring the best of the country's creativity to these shores.

As part of the Cultural Olympiad, the celebration will also create opportunities for Brazilian artists to collaborate and create relationships with established and emerging British artists.

This year’s Grammy Awards, the US accolade to recognize outstanding acheivement in the music industry, was held on Sunday 12 February.

The event saw a very British victory, as Adele won in all six categories she was nominated in, matching leading American singer Beyoncé for most Grammy wins in a night by a female act.

Adele won record of the year, song of the year, best pop solo performance and best short form music video for ‘Rolling in the Deep’. Her second album, ’21’, was named album of the year.

The singer/songwriter also performed for the first time since having throat surgery last year.

Other British winners were Amy Winehouse, who received a posthumous award for her duet with Tony Bennett, ‘Body and Soul’, which was the last recording she made before her death in July.

British Corinne Bailey also picked up a Grammy for the best R&B performance for ‘Is This Love’.

The last work of the late Lucian Freud went on show for the first time at London's National Portrait Gallery this week, as a countdown event for the London 2012 Festival.

The most ambitious exhibition of the artist's work for ten years, Lucian Freud Portraits will provide an opportunity for visitors to see some of his most important portraits. The show runs from 9 February to 27 May.

Prince Charles is leading global celebrations to mark the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens's birth today.

The Prince of Wales laid a wreath at the author's grave in Poets' Corner, ahead of a special service at Westminster Abbey.

The first major exhibition of David Hockney's landscape works will go on show at the Royal Academy of Arts this month, as part of a countdown event for the London 2012 Festival.

David Hockney: A Bigger Picture will be on display from 21 January until 9 April 2012, and will feature the artist's famously vivid paintings alongside related drawings and films.

It may surprise you to learn that, amongst the buildings and traffic, a thriving gardening scene has taken root in London. Inspired to grow their own produce in green spaces around the capital, Londoners are channelling Britain's allotment tradition in new and exciting ways.

Inspired by the cultural vision of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Movement, Festival of the World will feature a number of exciting projects to celebrate the arts and their power to transform lives.