Heaney lauded at Irish Book Awards

Poet Seamus Heaney is to receive a lifetime achievement award at this year's Bord Gais Energy Irish Book Awards, with the gongs including an Irish Bookshop of the Year Award for the first time.

Also new this year, RTE Television will broadcast the highlights of the awards on 24th November at 10.45 p.m. The awards themselves take place in Dublin's Royal Dublin Society on 17th November.

Heaney will be awarded the Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to Irish literature at the event, with other authors given a nod including Picador's debut author Belinda McKeon shortlisted for Solace, in the Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year category, alongside authors including Anne Enright for The Forgotten Waltz (Random House) and On Canaan's Side by Sebastian Barry (Faber).

Man Booker runner-up The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt (Granta), is nominated in the RTE Radio 1's "The John Murray Show" Listeners' Choice Award.

Chairman of the awards John Treac, said: "As a literary nation, Ireland has few equals. We in the trade know how tremendously lucky we are to have so many great writers working on this island. We may also count ourselves fortunate to be doing business in a nation of avid readers. 

"Even in these hard times, our industry continues to produce books of the highest quality and the Awards are a celebration of all these happy circumstances."

Winners are chosen using a combination of public votes and votes from the 100-strong Irish Literary Academy.

The shortlists in full:

The Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year:

Solace by Belinda McKeon (Picador)
On Canaan’s Side by Sebastian Barry (Faber)
The Cold Eye of Heaven by Christine Dwyer Hickey (Atlantic)
City of Bohane by Kevin Barry (Random House)
The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright (Random House)
Mistaken by Neil Jordan (John Murray)

RTÉ Radio 1’s The John Murray Show Listeners’ Choice Award:

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (Corsair)
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt (Granta)
How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran (Ebury)
How the Light Gets in by Mary McEvoy (Hachette)
The Club by Christy O’Connor (Penguin Ireland)
My Dad was Nearly James Bond by Des Bishop (Penguin Ireland)
 
The Ireland AM Irish Crime Fiction Book of the Year:

A Death in Summer by Benjamin Black (Mantle)
The Bloody Meadow by William Ryan (Mantle)
Bloodland by Alan Glynn (Faber)
The Reckoning by Jane Casey (Ebury)
Taboo by Casey Hill (Simon & Schuster)
Absolute Zero Cool by Declan Burke (Liberties Press)

The Argosy Irish Non-Fiction Book of the Year:

How Ireland Really Went Bust by Matt Cooper (Penguin Ireland)
Easy Meals by Rachel Allen (Collins)
Circles Around the Sun by Molly McCloskey (Penguin Ireland)
Moscow, December 25, 1991 by Conor O’Clery (Transworld Ireland)
Just Joe: My Autobiography by Joe Duffy (Transworld Ireland)
Anglo Republic by Simon Carswell (Penguin Ireland)

Eason Irish Popular Fiction Book of the Year:

The Time of my Life by Cecilia Ahern (HarperCollins)
All For You by Sheila O’Flanagan (Headline)
Me and My Sisters by Sinead Moriarty (Penguin Ireland)
Love and Marriage by Patricia Scanlan (Transworld Ireland)
NAMA Mia! by Ross O'Carroll Kelly (Penguin Ireland)
The Pink Ladies Club by Emma Hannigan (Poolbeg Press)

Irish Sports Book of the Year:

My Autobiography by A P McCoy (Orion)
Engage: The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson by Paul Kimmage (Simon & Schuster)
Walk On: My Life in Red by Ronnie Whelan and Tommy Conlon (Simon & Schuster)
A Parish Far from Home by Philip O’Connor (Gill & Macmillan)
Joking Apart: My Autobiography by Donncha O’Callaghan (Transworld Ireland)
Inside the Peloton by Nicolas Roche (Transworld Ireland)

Sunday Independent Best Irish Newcomer of the Year:

The Tenderloin by John Butler (Picador)
Solace by Belinda McKeon (Picador)
The Better Half by Sarah Harte (Penguin Ireland)
The Lingerie Designer by Siobhan McKenna (Poolbeg Press)
Salty Baby by Orla Tinsley (Hachette)
My Dad was Nearly James Bond by Des Bishop (Penguin Ireland)

International Education Services Best Irish Published Book of the Year:

Catherine’s Family Kitchen by Catherine Fulvio (Gill & Macmillan)
Make Bake Love by Lilly Higgins (Gill & Macmillan)
Revolution by Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc (Mercier)
The Other Ireland by Mary Jones (Gill & Macmillan)
Connemara: A Little Gaelic Kingdom by Tim Robinson (Penguin Ireland)
Gorgeous to Go by Aisling McDermott (Gill & Macmillan)

Specsavers Irish Children’s Book of the Year:

Junior:
Adam’s World of Wonders by Benji Bennett (Adams Printing Press)
The Lonely Beast by Chris Judge (Andersen Press)
Sally Go Round the Stars by Sarah Webb and Steve McCarthy with Claire Ranson
(O'Brien Press)
Stuck by Oliver Jeffers (HarperCollins Childrens)
Marco Moves In by Gerry Boland (O’Brien Press)

Senior
The Saga of Larten Crepsley: Ocean of Blood by Darren Shan (HarperCollins
Childrens)
Skulduggery Pleasant: Death Bringer by Derek Landy (HarperCollins Childrens)
And For Your Information… by Denise Deegan (Hachette)
Arthur Quinn and the World Serpent by Alan Early (Mercier)
The Real Rebecca by Anna Carey (O’Brien)
 

Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award
Seamus Heaney