LOVE READING? OR just picked up one book this year – and couldn’t put it down?

The Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards has just released its shortlist, featuring a really wide range of authors from popular names such as Cecilia Ahern and Cathy Kelly to literary figures including Colm Tóibín and Joseph O’Connor.

The awards, in their ninth year, are an unusually democratic process as the winners are decided by not just a panel of around 300 ‘experts’ (librarians, critics, non-shortlisted authors, booksellers and so on) but also given equal weight is a public vote on each category.

So if you want a say on who receives an award this year, get your votes in before midnight on 21 November.

This is the whole list of categories. TheJournal.ie is sponsoring the Best Irish-Published Book of the Year.

Eason Novel of the Year:

• Nora Webster by Colm Tóibín (Viking)
• The Thrill of it All by Joseph O’Connor (Harvill Secker)
• The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell (Hodder)
• A History of Loneliness by John Boyne (Doubleday)
• From Out of the City by John Kelly (Dalkey Archive Press)
• Academy St by Mary Costello (Canongate)

Sunday Independent Newcomer of the Year:

• All that is Solid Melts into Air by Darragh McKeon (Viking)
• Kingdom of Scars by Eoin Macken (Poolbeg Press)
• Flight by Oona Frawley (Tramp Press)
• Only Ever Yours by Louise O’Neill (Quercus)
• Here are the Young Men by Rob Doyle (The Lilliput Press)
• The Undertaking by Audrey Magee (Atlantic Books)

National Book Tokens Non-Fiction Book of the Year:

• Get Sh*t Done! by Niall Harbison (Penguin Ireland)
• The Last Armada by Des Ekin (The O’Brien Press)
• The Life and Loves of a He Devil by Graham Norton (Hodder & Stoughton)
• It’s Not Yet Dark by Simon Fitzmaurice (Hachette Books Ireland)
• Hanging with The Elephant by Michael Harding (Hachette Books Ireland)
• Tom Gilmartin by Frank Connolly (Gill & Macmillan)

Bord Gáis Energy Sports Book of the Year:

• The Test by Brian O’Driscoll (Penguin Ireland)
• The Second Half by Roy Keane with Roddy Doyle (Orion)
• Dalo: The Autobiography of Anthony Daly by Anthony Daly (Transworld Ireland)
• The Race to Truth by Emma O’Reilly (Bantam)
• A Different Shade of Green by Alan McLoughlin (Ballpoint Press)
• Fields of Fire by Damian Lawlor (Transworld Ireland)

TheJournal.ie Best Irish-Published Book of the Year

• The Long Acre by PJ Cunningham (Ballpoint Press)
• Judging W.T. Cosgrave by Michael Laffan (Royal Irish Academy)
• Dubliners 100: by Thomas Morris (Tramp Press)
• Dancehall Days by Michael O’Reilly (Gill & MacMillan)
• The Glorious Madness, Tales of the Irish in World War I by Turtle Bunbury (Gill &
• MacMillan)
• T.K. Whitaker: Portrait of A Patriot by Anne Chambers (Doubleday Ireland)

Specsavers Children’s Book of the Year: (Junior)

• TiN by Chris Judge(Andersen Press)
• Brian and the Vikings by Chris Judge and Mark Wickham (The O’Brien Press)
• Shh! We Have a Plan by Chris Haughton (Walker Books)
• Specs for Rex by Yasmeen Ismail (Bloomsbury Children’s)

Specsavers Children’s Book of the Year: (Senior)

• Skulduggery Pleasant, The Dying Light by Derek Landy (Harper Collins Children’s Books)
• Apple and Rain by Sarah Crossan (Bloomsbury Children’s)
• Moone Boy by Chris O’Dowd and Nick Vincent Murphy (Macmillan Children’s Books)
• Brilliant by Roddy Doyle (Macmillan Children’s Books)

Avonmore Cookbook of the Year:

• The Happy Pear by David and Stephen Flynn (Penguin Ireland)
• All Things Sweet by Rachel Allen (Harper Collins)
• The Nation’s Favourite Food Fast by Neven Maguire (Gill &Macmillan)
• From Lynda’s Table by Lynda Booth (DCS Publishing)
• Back To Basics by Kevin Dundon (Hachette Books Ireland)
• The Extra Virgin Kitchen by Susan Jane White (Gill and Macmillan)

Ireland AM Crime Fiction Book of the Year:

• Unravelling Oliver by Liz Nugent (Penguin Ireland)
• The Kill by Jane Casey (Ebury Publishing)
• The Final Silence by Stuart Neville (Harvill Secker)
• Can Anybody Help Me? by Sinead Crowley (Quercus)
• The Secret Place by Tana French (Hachette Books Ireland)
• Last Kiss by Louise Phillips (Hachette Books Ireland)

Popular Fiction Book of the Year:

• Keeping Up with the Kalashnikovs by Ross O’Carroll Kelly (Penguin Ireland)
• The Secrets Sisters Keep by Sinéad Moriarty (Penguin Ireland)
• The Year I Met You by Cecelia Ahern (HarperCollins)
• The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes by Anna McPartlin (Transworld Ireland)
• It Started With Paris by Cathy Kelly (Orion)
• The Heart of Winter by Emma Hannigan (Hachette Books Ireland)

RTE Radio One John Murray Show Listeners’ Choice:

• Us by David Nicholls (Hodder & Stoughton)
• Unravelling Oliver by Liz Nugent (Penguin Ireland)
• The Life and Loves of a He Devil by Graham Norton (Hodder and Stoughton)
• It’s All in the Head by Majella O’Donnell (Simon &Schuster)
• The Test by Brian O’Driscoll (Penguin Ireland)
• Paul Galvin: The Autobiography by Paul Galvin (Transworld Ireland)

Writing.ie Short Story of the Year:

• Eveline by Donal Ryan (The Irish Times)
• Paprika by Frank McGuinness (Surge, The O’Brien Press)
• Absence by Christine Dwyer Hickey (New Island Books)
• Rest Day by John Boyne (The Irish Times)
• Priesteen by Ciarán Folan (The London Magazine)
• Five Days to Polling Day by Danielle McLaughlin (The South Circular)

Last year, over 40,000 Irish readers cast a vote in the awards, highlights of which will be broadcast on RTÉ One on Saturday, 29 November.

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