How the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards shape my reading @BGEIBAS #BGEIBA

So if you’d seen me on twitter last year, you’d have seen me gushing about The Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards, which puts everything I love together in one room for one night only and, my word do I get excited when I even think about it. So normally, this is what I do: I wait and wait and wait for the shortlist to come out. I listen even more intently to Ryan Tubridy’s show in the morning to see if he’s announced his show’s nominations and pop into Eason to see where they’re at on the whole matter. When all is announced I begin to trawl through the nominees see if there are many authors and books I know, search out the ones I don’t and begin to read. I do this so that I can make an informed decision and vote fully legally (yes I do realise how I sound), and generally I get all forms of review requests in the meantime and panic as I realise to get through them all may not be so realistic! So I’ll be honest, this years awards is full of books whose names I’ve written on pieces of paper, or who are on my Kindle. I have not read that many of them (sob). The three I have reviewed are The Things I Should Have Told You by Carmel Harrington (read my review here) , Distress Signals by Catherine Ryan Howard (I wrote about it here), and Lying in Wait by Liz Nugent (read the review here) .

Sitting on my Kindle, just ABOUT to be read is The Girl from The Savoy by Hazel Gaynor (I reviewed A Memory Of Violets and it was my number one book for 2015, read that review here) and the next book that jumps out at me, but which I shall have to go hunting for in paperback is  Dictatorship: My Teenage War With OCD – Rebecca Ryan (On Stream Publications Ltd)- I heard the interview with this author, who’s is quite young, (or at least much younger than me!) on Ryan Tubridy and she BLEW ME AWAY. These are followed closely by The Book of Shadows by ERMurray, Lyrebird by Cecilia Ahern, The Last Days of Summer by Vanessa Ronan and I generally read Marian Keyes at Christmas for my ‘I’ll sit here and read for as long as I want to, dammit!’ time;). After that I know I’ve to get going on Graham Norton‘s book, Holding because, not only have people been raving about it, but also it’s a tale set in a little Irish village, and I have to read all such books in a quest to see if mine is way off the rest of the author population’s! As well as that it’s a sin not to have read the Maggie O’Farrell book , and I really want to read ‘Fat Chance’ by Louise MacSharry. Then I’m a bad reviewer because I haven’t read Solar Bones by Mike McCormack, which sounds AMAZING and I’ve The Wonder by Emma Donoghue to read as a result of a book group I’m in. Now, moving along, since I’ve seen Claire Hennessy speak and can’t wait to read Nothing Tastes As Good , well that’s in there too, plus to be Irish and not to have read Donal Ryan’s All We Shall Know beggars belief (plus I heard him speaking on the radio when he got his first book deal and I’ve meant to read his books since then!) so, um, yes. In the kiddies section I’m definitely going to get ‘Goodnight Everyone’ by  Chris Haughton and Historopedia by Fatti and John Burke, which I was looking at today in Eason and is perfection for the kiddies! I adore all cookbooks so, yes, need to get looking into them too! So, there you go. This is what happens every year, and to be honest, the books I have listed are only the ones that I previously said I really had to get going on, I have to wade through the rest too!

Anyhoo, this post is gone a bit nuts, the reason I was posting was actually to let you know that, thanks to the amazing people at Evoke.ie , I’ll be there!!!! At the awards! Yes, this is a huge, huge, huge thing for me. I will be  sitting in the green room alongside my best friend and fellow writer and blogger Deirdre Reidy from https://countingtheminutestilbedtime.com/ and I’ll tell you now, I can’t wait! Will fill you in on social media where I can, and will blog about it after, but for now, here’s the shortlist, taken from the Irish Bord Gais Energy Ireland Book Award website. I hope you enjoy going through the titles as much as I have, and find something you didn’t know existed:)

Eason Novel of the Year

All We Shall Know – Donal Ryan (Doubleday Ireland)

Days Without End – Sebastian Barry (Faber & Faber)

Solar Bones – Mike McCormack (Tramp Press)

The Lesser Bohemians – Eimear McBride (Faber & Faber)

The Wonder – Emma Donoghue (Pan Macmillan/Picador)

This Must Be The Place – Maggie O’Farrell (Tinder Press)

The Journal.ie Best Irish published Book of the Year

All Through the Night – Edited by Marie Heaney (Poetry Ireland)

Dublin since 1922 – Tim Carey (Hachette Books Ireland)

Looking Back: The Changing Faces of Ireland – Eric Luke (The O’Brien Press)

Modern Ireland in 100 Artworks – Edited by Fintan O’Toole (Royal Irish Academy)

The Invisible Art: A Century of Music in Ireland 1916-2016 – Michael Dervan (New Island Books)

The Glass Shore – Sinéad Gleeson (New Island Books)

Sunday Independent Newcomer of the Year

Himself – Jess Kidd (Canongate Books)

Red Dirt – EM Reapy (Head of Zeus)

The Last Days of Summer – Vanessa Ronan (Penguin Ireland)

The Maker of Swans – Paraic O’Donnell (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

The Things I Should Have Told You – Carmel Harrington (HarperCollins)

This Living and Immortal Thing – Austin Duffy (Granta Books)

National Book Tokens Nonfiction Book of the Year

I Read The News Today, Oh Boy – Paul Howard (Picador)

Ireland The Autobiography – John Bowman (Penguin Ireland)

The Hurley Maker’s Son – Patrick Deeley (Doubleday Ireland)

The Supreme Court – Ruadhán Mac Cormaic (Penguin Ireland)

Time Pieces: A Dublin Memoir – John Banville & Paul Joyce (Hachette Books Ireland)

When Ideas Matter – Michael D Higgins (Head of Zeus)

RTE Radio One Ryan Tubridy Show Listener’s Choice

Lying In Wait – Liz Nugent (Penguin Ireland)

Conclave – Robert Harris (Hutchinson)

Dictatorship: My Teenage War With OCD – Rebecca Ryan (On Stream Publications Ltd)

All Through the Night – Edited by Marie Heaney (Poetry Ireland)

All We Shall Know – Donal Ryan (Transworld Ireland)

Victim Without A Face – Stefan Ahnhem (Head of Zeus)

Listowel Writers’ Week Poem of the Year

In Glasnevin – Jane Clarke (From: The Irish Times)

Patagonia – Emma McKervey (From: The Compass Magazine)

Suppose I Lost – Andrew Soye (From: Abridged Magazine)

Love / Hotel / Love – Michael Naghtan Shanks (From: Poetry Ireland Review)

Specsavers Children’s Book of the Year (Junior)

A Child of Books – Sam Winston and Oliver Jeffers (Walker Books)

Goodnight Everyone – Chris Haughton (Walker Books)

Historopedia – Fatti and John Burke (Gill Books)

Pigín of Howth – Kathleen Watkins (Gill Books)

Rabbit and Bear: Rabbit’s Bad Habits – Julian Gough & Jim Field (Hachette Children’s Group)

Rover and the Big Fat Baby – Roddy Doyle (Pan Macmillan)

Specsavers Children’s Book of the Year (Senior)

Knights of the Borrowed Dark – Dave Rudden (Puffin)

The Book of Shadows – E.R. Murray (Mercier Press)

The Making of Mollie – Anna Carey (The O’Brien Press)

Needlework – Deirdre Sullivan (Little Island Books)

Nothing Tastes As Good – Claire Hennessy (Hot Key Books)

Flawed – Cecelia Ahern (HarperCollins Children’s Books)

Avonmore Cookbook of the Year

Recipes For A Nervous Breakdown – Sophie White (Gill Books)

The World of The Happy Pear – Stephen and David Flynn (Penguin Ireland)

Natural Born Feeder – Roz Purcell (Gill Books)

The Little Green Spoon – Indy Power (Ebury Press)

Neven Maguire’s Complete Family Cookbook – Neven Maguire (Gill Books)

The Brother Hubbard – Garrett Fitzgerald (Gill Books)

Irish Independent Popular Fiction Book of the Year

Game of Throw-Ins – Ross O’Carroll-Kelly (Penguin Ireland)

Lyrebird – Cecelia Ahern (HarperCollins)

Rebel Sisters – Marita Conlon-McKenna (Transworld Ireland)

The Girl From The Savoy – Hazel Gaynor (HarperCollins)

The Privileged – Emily Hourican (Hachette Books Ireland)

Holding – Graham Norton (Hodder & Stoughton)

Ireland AM Popular Nonfiction Book of the Year

Adventures of a Wonky-Eyed Boy – Jason Byrne (Gill Books)

Fat Chance – Louise McSharry (Penguin Ireland)

Making It Up As I Go Along – Marian Keyes (Michael Joseph)

Pippa – Pippa O’Connor (Penguin Ireland)

Talking to Strangers – Michael Harding (Hachette Books Ireland)

Mr. Pussy: Before I Forget to Remember – Alan Amsby/David Kenny (New Island Books)

Bord Gáis Energy Sports Book of the Year

Blood, Sweat & McAteer – Jason McAteer (Hachette Books Ireland)

Coolmore Stud, Ireland’s Greatest Sporting Success Story – Alan Conway (Mercier Press)

My Life in Rugby – Donal Lenihan (Transworld Ireland)

Out of Control – Cathal Mc Carron (Simon & Schuster)

The Battle – Paul O’Connell (Penguin Ireland)

Win or Learn – John Kavanagh (Penguin Ireland)

Writing.ie Short Story of the Year

Here We Are – Lucy Caldwell (Faber&Faber)

K-K-K – Lauren Foley (Ol Society – Australia)

The Visit – Orla McAlinden (Sowilo Press)

Green Amber Red – Jane Casey (New Island)

The Birds of June – John Connell (Granta Magazine)

What a River Remembers of its Course – Gerard Beirne (Numero Cinq Magazine)

Crime Fiction Award

Distress Signals – Catherine Ryan Howard (Atlantic Books (Corvus)

Little Bones – Sam Blake (Bonnier Zaffre)

Lying In Wait – Liz Nugent (Penguin Ireland)

The Constant Soldier – William Ryan (Mantle)

The Drowning Child – Alex Barclay (HarperCollins)

The Trespasser – Tana French (Hachette Ireland)

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