Post-Awards Chat

at

Last night.

An Post Book awards

Fintan O’Toole on winning Non-Fiction Book of the Year for ‘We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Ireland since 1958’.

A full list of winners:

Eason Novel of the Year: Beautiful World, Where Are You – Sally Rooney

Irish Independent Crime Fiction Book of the Year: 56 Days – Catherine Ryan Howard

Eason Sport book of the Year in Association with Ireland AM: Fight Or Flight: My Life, My Choices – Keith Earls, with Tommy Conlon

Sunday Independent Newcomer of the Year: Snowflake – Louise Nealon

Odgers Berndtson Non-Fiction Book of the Year: We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Ireland Since 1958 – Fintan O’Toole

Dubray Biography of the Year: Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? – Séamas O’Reilly

Bookselling Ireland Cookbook of the Year: Everyday Cook – Donal Skehan

National Book Tokens Popular Fiction Book of the Year: Aisling and the City – Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen

Bookstation Lifestyle Book of the Year: Décor Galore – Laura De Barra

TheJournal.ie Best Irish Published Book of the Year: The Coastal Atlas of Ireland – Val Cummins, Robert Devoy Barry Brunt, Darius Bartlett, Sarah Kandrot

Specsavers Children’s Book of the Year (Junior): A Hug for You – David King, illustrated by Rhiannon Archard

Specsavers Children’s Book of the Year (Senior): The Summer I Robbed a Bank – David O’Doherty, illustrated by Chris Judge

Teen and Young Adult Book of the Year: The New Girl – Sinead Moriarty

RTÉ Audience Choice Award: Your One Wild And Precious Life – Maureen Gaffney

Library Association of Ireland Author of the Year: Marian Keyes

Writing.ie Short Story of the Year: Little Lives – Deirdre Sullivan

Listowel Writers’ Week Irish Poem of the Year: Longboat at Portaferry – Siobhan Campbell

The Love Leabhar Gaeilge Irish Language Book of the Year: Madame Lazare – Tadgh Mac Dhonnagain

The An Post Bookshop of the Year: Kennys Bookshop and Art Gallery, Galway

Fight!

An Post Book Award Winners (An Post)

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18 thoughts on “Post-Awards Chat

  1. Imelda Maybe

    Good man Fintan. Up there with the homespun wisdom of Marian Keyes and books about Aisling.

    Paul Howard was out sick.

  2. K. Cavan

    I wonder how many chapters about Brexit this establishment goon managed to squeeze into a book ostensibly about Ireland.
    His degree is in English & Philosophy, rather than History but I reckon the chattering classes tend to venerate him & might concieveably purchase a cookery book, should he’d care to pen one.
    He’s an insufferable bore on the subject of Brexit in particular & Populism in general, despite living most of his life in a Democracy, which he’s been unable to comprehend except by ascribing far-fetched & fanciful motivations to millions of individuals, but I do miss seeing his smug expression, lathered in sweat, when he’d go jogging around the area, with his face beaming out his “yes, it’s me” look.
    He’s extremely ignorant of anything beyond the concerns of his own bourgeois milleu, what he has to say about the rest of us will be fanciful in the extreme.
    No, Fintan, your book should be entitled ‘I Don’t Know Yourselves: A Personal History of Ireland since 1958’, you certainly don’t speak for “Us”.

  3. Tom

    Fintan’s modus operandi is to reduce rational debate to psychoanalysis of the bad-faith motivations of those he disagrees with. Straw-man bashing replaces reasoning, and the net effect is increase in anger (on all sides) with little or no intellectual clarity achieved (on any side).

  4. Noel Browne

    Good luck to all of them, writing can be the loneliest of all the Arts with no abundant financial return unless your book sells ten zillion copies. I’m still on my first chapter ..

  5. Deimos

    This explains a lot, little Fintan has spent the last 9 months re-publishing the same 3 articles in the Irish times every week or so. Apparently he was writing a book again. I imagine it will be paraded in all the book shops as a perfect present for people you don’t like until January then straight to the “reduced” bin.

    I am afraid That FOT isn’t my favourite journalist, he presents totally different faces in the London and Dublin spheres of affluence. I am not sure that either is actually him, I suspect that at the centre of the FOT construct is a missing Sligo Weekender sports reporter.

    Rant over, now I need to dive into the hotel maxi-bar.

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