Oct 25, 2024
Edel Coffey, David McWilliams, Maggie Armstrong, John Connell, Sinéad Moriarty and Triona Campbell shortlisted for The An Post Irish Book Awards 2024
THE LAST WORD
LISTENERS' CHOICE AWARD:
In Her Place
By Edel Coffey
Who is the other woman? That’s for you to decide.
Ann devoted years to her mother’s care – and now she’s gone, Ann feels lost.
Justin is also grieving, but his wife is still alive. Deborah is in a coma and she doesn’t have long left.
When the two meet, they are instantly drawn to one another and, before long, they’ve fallen deeply in love.
Ann quickly moves in with Justin and his little girl, making them the perfect family. But just as Ann settles into her new life, Justin’s is turned upside down. Unexpectedly, his wife has survived. Deborah is coming home.
Neither knows what to do. But one thing is certain: Ann has earned the life Deborah left behind, and there’s no way she’s giving it up . . .
WHSMITH
NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR:
Money: A Story of Humanity
By David McWilliams
Money is everything. It brings freedom and it takes it away. It inspires and corrupts us. But what is money? Is it the main thing holding us back from utopia or is it the one constant that’s driven us to success?
In his illuminating, entertaining and often surprising book, economist David McWilliams charts the relationship between humans and money – from clay tablets in Mesopotamia to coins in Ancient Greece, from mathematics in the medieval Arab world to the French Revolution, and from the emergence of the US dollar right up to today’s cryptocurrency. Along the way, we meet a host of characters who have innovated with money, disrupting society and transforming the way we live. Like humanity, money is ever changing, adapting to its time and circumstances. The question is, over the last 5,000 years, have we changed money or has money changed us?
Money tells an astonishing new story of our species. Taking the reader on an epic journey through the history of money, McWilliams reveals its fundamental role in our world.
Twelve Sheep: Life lessons from a lambing season
By John Connell
For John Connell, the lambing season on his County Longford farm begins in the autumn. In the sheep shed, he surveys the dozen females in his care and contemplates the work ahead as the season slowly turns to winter, then spring.
The twelve sheep have come into his life at just the right moment. After years of hard work, John felt a deep tiredness creeping up on him, a sadness that he couldn’t shrug off. Having always sought spiritual guidance, he comes to realise that, in addition to the soothing words of literature and philosophy, perhaps the way ahead involves this simple flock of sheep. In the hard work of livestock rearing, in the long nights in the shed helping the sheep to lamb, he can reflect on what life truly means.
Like the flock that he shepherds, this book is both simple and profound, a meditation on the rituals of farming life and a primer on the lessons that nature can teach us. As spring returns and the sheep and their lambs are released into the fields, skipping with joy, John recalls the words of Henry David Thoreau, reminding us to ‘live in each season as it passes.’
SUNDAY INDEPENDENT
NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR:
Old Romantics
By Maggie Armstrong
A few years ago my husband recommended me for a job in his company, and I thought it would be fun, and so a woman named Rosaleen would ring me for a chat. Rosaleen was a senior director in the firm, and these were scheduled chats, but I was always unprepared, running from a room, looking for a pen, or out in the rain, pushing the baby in the pram. Rosaleen had a terse and serious manner that unwound into listless expectation when my turn came to speak. I would say something and she would wait for me to say something better. Rosaleen savoured a pause.
The line burned with a shared misgiving even as Rosaleen made me an astounding offer.
A woman pursues a man who cut ahead of her in a line. Two nice people report that a child is being left unsupervised at a local beach. Romances, old and new, shift and sour.
Old Romantics is an acutely observed and hideously entertaining collection of linked short stories from an astonishing new talent. Slippery, flawed and acute, Maggie Armstrong’s narrator navigates a world of awkward expectation and latent hostility.
SPECSAVERS
CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE YEAR (SENIOR):
Fixing Mum and Dad
By Sinéad Moriarty
FAMILY IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT.
Quinn is furious when her mum announces they are moving in with Grandad because her doctor dad is away working abroad again. New school, new town, new everything.
She manages to make one good friend, Charlie, the goalie on her football team, who loves books as much as she does. But there’s a lot to deal with, from Mum and Dad arguing over FaceTime to kids in school making nasty comments.
Quinn wishes life could go back to normal, but her BIGGEST worry is that Mum and Dad are going to break up and life will never be the same again …
International Education Services
TEEN AND YOUNG ADULT BOOK OF THE YEAR
in honour of John Treacy:
The Traitor in the Game
By Triona Campbell
The sequel to explosive YA thriller A Game of Life or Death: At the end of book one, Asha Kennedy (Lisbeth Salander for a new generation) uncovered the dark secret at the heart of Virtual Reality game ‘Shackle’ – You don’t play the game; it plays you – and must now go deeper into a dangerous world of corruption and greed: who is the puppet master of the game and what is their ultimate goal? Set in New York, this is a whiplashpaced, twisty mystery and scorching romance where Asha’s enemies may be closer than she could ever imagine.
The winners will be honoured at the Gala Dinner and Awards Ceremony on November 27th in the Convention Centre Dublin.