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Book Awards
Book Awards
Irish and international book awards
Awards for Adult Books
The Booker Prize
The Booker Prize is awarded to writers who write in English and publish in Ireland or the UK. The Longlist for 2021 will be announced in July and the winner in November. The judges for this year's prize are historian Maya Jasanoff, writer and editor Horatia Harrod; actor Natascha McElhone; twice Booker-shortlisted novelist and professor Chigozie Obioma; and writer and former Archbishop Rowan Williams. The winner of the prize will get £50,000 while the shortlisted authors each receive £2,500 and a specially bound edition of their book.
To see past winners, shortlisted and long-listed titles you can browse the Booker Library on their website.
The 2020 winner was Douglas Stuart (Scotland/USA) Shuggie Bain (Picador, Pan Macmillan) Reserve on BorrowBox or Encore
The Booker Prize Shortlist 2021
The Promise by Damien Galgut
The Swarts are gathering for Ma's funeral. The younger generation, Anton and Amor, detest everything the family stand for -- not least the failed promise to the Black woman who has worked for them her whole life. After years of service, Salome was promised her own house, her own land... yet somehow, as each decade passes, that promise remains unfulfilled. The narrator's eye shifts and blinks: moving fluidly between characters, flying into their dreams; deliciously lethal in its observation. And as the country moves from old deep divisions to its new so-called fairer society, the lost promise of more than just one family hovers behind the novel's title. In this story of a diminished family, sharp and tender emotional truths hit home. Confident, deft and quietly powerful, The Promise is literary fiction at its finest.
A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam
It begins with a message: a telephone call informing Krishan that his grandmother's former care-giver, Rani, has died in unexpected circumstances, at the bottom of a well in her village in the north, her neck broken by the fall. The news arrives on the heels of an email from Anjum, an activist he fell in love with four years earlier while living in Delhi, bringing with it the stirring of distant memories and desires. As Krishan makes the long journey by train from Colombo into the war-torn Northern Province for the funeral, so begins a passage into the soul of an island devastated by violence.
No one is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
"From "a formidably gifted writer" (The New York Times Book Review), a book that asks: Is there life after the internet? As this urgent, genre-defying book opens, a woman who has recently been elevated to prominence for her social media posts travels around the world to meet her adoring fans. She is overwhelmed by navigating the new language and etiquette of what she terms "the portal," where she grapples with an unshakable conviction that a vast chorus of voices is now dictating her thoughts. When existential threats--from climate change and economic precariousness to the rise of an unnamed dictator and an epidemic of loneliness--begin to loom, she posts her way deeper into the portal's void. An avalanche of images, details, and references accumulate to form a landscape that is post-sense, post-irony, post-everything. "Are we in hell?" the people of the portal ask themselves. "Are we all just going to keep doing this until we die?" Suddenly, two texts from her mother pierce the fray: "Something has gone wrong," and "How soon can you get here?" As real life and its stakes collide with the increasingly absurd antics of the portal, the woman confronts a world that seems to contain both an abundance of proof that there is goodness, empathy, and justice in the universe, and a deluge of evidence to the contrary"-- Provided by publisher
The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed
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Mahmood Mattan is a fixture in Cardiff's Tiger Bay, 1952, which bustles with Somali and West Indian sailors, Maltese businessmen and Jewish families. He is a father, chancer, some-time petty thief. He is many things, in fact, but he is not a murderer.
So when a shopkeeper is brutally killed and all eyes fall on him, Mahmood isn't too worried. It is true that he has been getting into trouble more often since his Welsh wife Laura left him. But Mahmood is secure in his innocence in a country where, he thinks, justice is served.
It is only in the run-up to the trial, as the prospect of freedom dwindles, that it will dawn on Mahmood that he is in a terrifying fight for his life - against conspiracy, prejudice and the inhumanity of the state. And, under the shadow of the hangman's noose, he begins to realise that the truth may not be enough to save him.
Bewilderment by Richard Powers Reserve on Encore
Theo Byrne is a promising young astrobiologist who has found a way to search for life on other planets dozens of light years away. He is also the widowed father of a most unusual nine-year-old. His son Robin is funny, loving, and filled with plans. He thinks and feels deeply, adores animals, and can spend hours painting elaborate pictures. He is also on the verge of being expelled from third grade, for smashing his friend's face with a metal thermos. What can a father do, when the only solution offered to his rare and troubled boy is to put him on psychoactive drugs? What can he say when his boy comes to him wanting an explanation for a world that is clearly in love with its own destruction? The only thing for it is to take the boy to other planets, while all the while fostering his son's desperate campaign to help save this one.
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
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After being rescued as infants from a sinking ocean liner in 1914, Marian and Jamie Graves are raised by their dissolute uncle in Missoula, Montana. There–after encountering a pair of barnstorming pilots passing through town in beat-up biplanes–Marian commences her lifelong love affair with flight. At fourteen she drops out of school and finds an unexpected and dangerous patron in a wealthy bootlegger who provides a plane and subsidizes her lessons, an arrangement that will haunt her for the rest of her life, even as it allows her to fulfill her destiny: circumnavigating the globe by flying over the North and South Poles. A century later, Hadley Baxter is cast to play Marian in a film that centers on Marian’s disappearance in Antarctica. Vibrant, canny, disgusted with the claustrophobia of Hollywood, Hadley is eager to redefine herself after a romantic film franchise has imprisoned her in the grip of cult celebrity. Her immersion into the character of Marian unfolds, thrillingly, alongside Marian’s own story, as the two women’s fates–and their hunger for self-determination in vastly different geographies and times–collide.
The Women’s Prize for Fiction
The Women's Prize for Fiction was born in the aftermath of the 1991 Booker Prize Shortlist, which was distinctive due to its lack of female authors. Even though more published fiction was written by women than men, some in the industry were concerned that women’s writing was being overlooked when it came to literary prizes. So this prize was created and is open only to women writing in English. Novels must be published in the United Kingdom between 1 April in the year the Prize calls for entries, and 31 March the following year, when the Prize is announced. The award has previously been known as The Orange Prize for Fiction and The Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction.
The 2021 judging panel: Chair of Judges, Bernardine Evaristo, is joined by Elizabeth Day, podcaster, author and journalist; Vick Hope, TV and Radio presenter, journalist and writer; Nesrine Malik, Guardian columnist and writer; and Sarah-Jane Mee, Sky news presenter and broadcaster.
The Winner for 2021 is Piranesi by Susanna Clarke See on Encore
Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has. In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides which thunder up staircases, the clouds which move in slow procession through the upper halls.
On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend, the Other. At other times he brings tributes of food and waterlilies to the Dead. But mostly, he is alone. Messages begin to appear, scratched out in chalk on the pavements. There is someone new in the House. But who are they and what do they want? Are they a friend or do they bring destruction and madness as the Other claims?
Lost texts must be found; secrets must be uncovered. The world that Piranesi thought he knew is becoming strange and dangerous. The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.
2021 Shortlist
- The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett See on Encore
- Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi See on Encore
- Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller See on Encore
- Piranesi by Susanna Clarke See on Encore
- How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones See on Encore
- No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood See on Encore
The 2021 Longlist
- Because of You by Dawn French See on Encore
- Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi See on Encore
- Consent by Annabel Lyon See on Encore
- Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters See on Encore
- Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan See on Encore
- How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones See on Encore
- Luster by Raven Leilani See on Encore
- No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood See on Encore
- Nothing But Blue Sky by Kathleen MacMahon Reserve on BorrowBox or See on Encore
- Piranesi by Susanna Clarke See on Encore
- Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers See on Encore
- Summer by Ali Smith Reserve on BorrowBox or See on Encore
- The Golden Rule by Amanda Craig See on Encore
- The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett See on Encore
- Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi See on Encore
- Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller See on Encore
The International Booker Prize
The International Booker Prize is awarded annually for a single book, translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland. The vital work of translators is celebrated, with the prize money divided equally between the author and translator.
The 2021 International Booker Prize shortlist
At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop, translated from French by Anna Moschovakis, Pushkin Press See on Encore
The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enríquez, translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell, Granta Books (See on Encore)
When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut, translated from Spanish by Adrian Nathan West, Pushkin Press See on Encore
The Employees by Olga Ravn, translated from Danish by Martin Aitken, Lolli Editions See on Encore
In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova, translated from Russian by Sasha Dugdale, Fitzcarraldo Editions See on Encore
The War of the Poor by Éric Vuillard, translated from French by Mark Polizzotti, Pan Macmillan, Picador See on Encore
The winners will be announced on the 2nd of June.
The winner of the 2020 prize was The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld (Dutch – Netherlands), translated by Michele Hutchison Reserve on BorrowBox or Reserve on Encore
Jas lives with her devout farming family in the rural Netherlands. One winter’s day, her older brother joins an ice skating trip. Resentful at being left alone, she makes a perverse plea to God; he never returns. As grief overwhelms the farm, Jas succumbs to a vortex of increasingly disturbing fantasies, watching her family disintegrate into a darkness that threatens to derail them all.
A bestselling sensation in the Netherlands by a prize-winning young poet, Marieke Lucas Rijneveld’s debut novel lays everything bare. It is a world of language unlike any other, which Michele Hutchison’s striking translation captures in all its wild, violent beauty.
The Rathbones Folio Prize
The Rathbones Folio Prize is open to all works of literature written in English and published in the UK. All genres and all forms of literature are eligible, except work written primarily for children. The format of first publication may be print or digital.
The Prize will be awarded on March 24th for books published in the previous calendar year. The 2021 judges are T.S. Eliot Prize-winning poet Roger Robinson, Irish writer, editor and broadcaster Sinéad Gleeson and novelist and short story writer Jon McGregor.
2021 Shortlist
Handiwork – Sara Baume (Tramp Press) See on Encore
Indelicacy – Amina Cain (Daunt Books) See on Encore
As You Were – Elaine Feeney (Harvill Secker) Read or Listen on BorrowBox or See on Encore
Poor – Caleb Femi (Penguin) See on Encore
My Darling from the Lions – Rachel Long (Picador) Listen on BorrowBox or See on Encore
In the Dream House: A Memoir – Carmen Maria Machado (Serpent’s Tail) Read on BorrowBox or See on Encore
A Ghost in the Throat – Doireann Ní Ghríofa (Tramp Press) Read on BorrowBox or See on Encore
The Mermaid of Black Conch – Monique Roffey (Peepal Tree Press) See on Encore
The International Dublin Literary Award
The International DUBLIN Literary Award, formerly known as the Impac award, is presented annually for a novel written in or translated into English. The award is sponsored by Dublin City Council and administered by Dublin City Public Libraries. Nominations are submitted by library systems in major cities throughout the world. The award is now in its 24th year.
The 2021 Longlist was announced on February 3rd and consists of 49 books nominated by 69 libraries in 30 countries worldwide. The shortlist will be announced later in the Spring and the winners will be revealed on May 20th, 2021.
Read some of the 2020 shortlisted titles on BorrowBox
1. The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker (British). Published by Hamish Hamilton Ltd.
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2. Milkman by Anna Burns (Irish). Published by Faber & Faber and Graywolf Press.
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3. Disoriental by Négar Djavadi (Iranian-French). Translated from the French by Tina Kover. Published by Europa Editions.
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4. Washington Black by Esi Edugyan (Canadian). Published by Serpents Tail Ltd., HarperCollins Canada and Alfred A. Knopf.
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5. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones (American). Published by Algonquin Books.
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6. History of Violence by Édouard Louis (French). Translated from the French by Lorin Stein. Published by Harvill Secker.
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7. The Friend by Sigrid Nunez (American). Published by Virago Press Ltd.
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8. There There by Tommy Orange (Native American). Published by Harvill Secker, Alfred A. Knopf and McClelland & Stewart Inc.
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9. All the Lives We Never Lived by Anuradha Roy (Indian). Published by MacLehose Press and Atria Books.
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10. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk (Polish). Translated by from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones. Published by Fitzcarraldo Editions.
The Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize 2020 was awarded earlier this month (May). The Pulitzer Prizes were established by the legacy of journalist Joseph Pulitzer, to incentivise excellence in journalism. The prizes are open to U.S. citizens for the categories of Books, Drama and Music, although for the History category, the book must be a history of the United States but the author may be of any nationality. For the Journalism competition, entrants may be of any nationality but work must have appeared in U.S. newspaper, magazine or news site that publishes regularly.
Winners and Nominated Finalists will be announced on April 19, 2021. Nominated finalists are not announced in advance. And this year the
2020 Book Winners
Fiction : The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead 
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-
Whitehead's brilliant examination of America's history of violence is a stunning novel of impeccable language and startling insight.' — Publishers Weekly
- As the Civil Rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in segregated Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr Martin Luther King Jr to heart: He is ‘as good as anyone.’ Abandoned by his parents, but kept on the straight and narrow by his grandmother, Elwood is a high school senior about to start classes at a local college. But for a black boy in the Jim Crow South of the early 1960s, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future. Elwood is sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, whose mission statement says it provides ‘physical, intellectual and moral training’ so that the delinquent boys in their charge can become ‘honourable and honest men.’
In reality, the Nickel Academy is a grotesque chamber of horrors where the sadistic staff beats and sexually abuses the students, corrupt officials and locals steal food and supplies and any boy who resists is likely to disappear ‘out back.’ Stunned to find himself in such a vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold on to Dr King’s ringing assertion ‘Throw us in jail and we will still love you.’ His friend Turner thinks that Elwood is worse than naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble.
The tension between Elwood’s ideals and Turner’s skepticism leads to a decision with repercussions that will echo down the decades. Formed in the crucible of the evils Jim Crow wrought, the boys’ fates will be determined by what they endured at the Nickel Academy.
Finalists in the Fiction category were The Dutch House by Ann Patchett (Read on BorrowBox)and The Topeka School by Ben Lerner.
History : Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America, by W. Caleb McDaniel described by the Pulitzer website as a "masterfully researched meditation on reparations based on the remarkable story of a 19th century woman who survived kidnapping and re-enslavement to sue her captor."
The unforgettable saga of one enslaved woman's fight for justice—and reparations
Born into slavery, Henrietta Wood was taken to Cincinnati and legally freed in 1848. In 1853, a Kentucky deputy sheriff named Zebulon Ward colluded with Wood's employer, abducted her, and sold her back into bondage. She remained enslaved throughout the Civil War, giving birth to a son in Mississippi and never forgetting who had put her in this position.
By 1869, Wood had obtained her freedom for a second time and returned to Cincinnati, where she sued Ward for damages in 1870. Astonishingly, after eight years of litigation, Wood won her case: in 1878, a Federal jury awarded her $2,500. The decision stuck on appeal. More important than the amount, though the largest ever awarded by an American court in restitution for slavery, was the fact that any money was awarded at all. By the time the case was decided, Ward had become a wealthy businessman and a pioneer of convict leasing in the South. Wood's son later became a prominent Chicago lawyer, and she went on to live until 1912.
McDaniel's book is an epic tale of a black woman who survived slavery twice and who achieved more than merely a moral victory over one of her oppressors. Above all,Sweet Taste of Libertyis a portrait of an extraordinary individual as well as a searing reminder of the lessons of her story, which establish beyond question the connections between slavery and the prison system that rose in its place. (Publisher's Description)
Finalists in the History category were : Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership, by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, a "deeply researched and rigorously argued account of the public-private partnership that replaced redlining with even more predatory and destructive practices."(Pulitzer.org) and The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America, by Greg Grandin, a "sweeping and beautifully written book that probes the American myth of boundless expansion and provides a compelling context for thinking about the current political moment (Pulitzer.org)
Biography Winner: Sontag: Her Life and Work, by Benjamin Moser, an "authoritatively constructed work told with pathos and grace, that captures the writer's genius and humanity alongside her addictions, sexual ambiguities and volatile enthusiasms."[Pulitzer.org] 
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(Publisher's Description) The definitive portrait of one of the American Century's most towering intellectuals: her writing and her radical thought, her public activism and her hidden private face
No writer is as emblematic of the American twentieth century as Susan Sontag. Mythologized and misunderstood, lauded and loathed, a girl from the suburbs who became a proud symbol of cosmopolitanism, Sontag left a legacy of writing on art and politics, feminism and homosexuality, celebrity and style, medicine and drugs, radicalism and Fascism and Freudianism and Communism and Americanism, that forms an indispensable key to modern culture. She was there when the Cuban Revolution began, and when the Berlin Wall came down; in Vietnam under American bombardment, in wartime Israel, in besieged Sarajevo. She was in New York when artists tried to resist the tug of money—and when many gave in. No writer negotiated as many worlds; no serious writer had as many glamorous lovers. Sontag tells these stories and examines the work upon which her reputation was based. It explores the agonizing insecurity behind the formidable public face: the broken relationships, the struggles with her sexuality, that animated—and undermined—her writing. And it shows her attempts to respond to the cruelties and absurdities of a country that had lost its way, and her conviction that fidelity to high culture was an activism of its own.
Utilizing hundreds of interviews conducted from Maui to Stockholm and from London to Sarajevo—and featuring nearly one hundred images—Sontag is the first book based on the writer's restricted archives, and on access to many people who have never before spoken about Sontag, including Annie Leibovitz. It is a definitive portrait—a great American novel in the form of a biography.
Biography Finalists:
Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century, by George Packer (Alfred A. Knopf)Parisian Lives: Samuel Beckett, Simone de Beauvoir, And Me, by the late Deirdre Bair (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday) Read on BorrowBox
Poetry Winner: The Tradition, by Jericho Brown, a "collection of masterful lyrics that combine delicacy with historical urgency in their loving evocation of bodies vulnerable to hostility and violence." (Pulitzer.org)
Beauty abounds in Jericho Brown’s daring new poetry collection, despite and inside of the evil that pollutes the everyday. A National Book Award finalist, The Tradition questions why and how we’ve become accustomed to terror: in the bedroom, the classroom, the workplace, and the movie theater. From mass shootings to rape to the murder of unarmed people by police, Brown interrupts complacency by locating each emergency in the garden of the body, where living things grow and wither—or survive.
In the urgency born of real danger, Brown’s work is at its most innovative. His invention of the duplex—a combination of the sonnet, the ghazal, and the blues—is an all-out exhibition of formal skill, and his lyrics move through elegy and memory with a breathless cadence. Jericho Brown is a poet of eros: here he wields this power as never before, touching the very heart of our cultural crisis. (Description from the publisher)
Poetry Category Finalists
Dunce, by Mary Ruefle, "poems of wildness and wit that swerve away from the predictable as they balance comedy and melancholy." (Pulitzer.org)
Only as the Day Is Long: New and Selected Poems, by Dorianne Laux, "poetic narratives of plainspoken authenticity with characters whose breadth spans the wide range of American life (Pulitzer.org)
General Non-Fiction Winners:
The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America, by Greg Grandin, a "sweeping and beautifully written book that probes the American myth of boundless expansion and provides a compelling context for thinking about the current political moment. (Pulitzer.org)"
The Undying: Pain, Vulnerability, Mortality, Medicine, Art, Time, Dreams, Data, Exhaustion, Cancer, and Care, by Anne Boyer, an "elegant and unforgettable narrative about the brutality of illness and the capitalism of cancer care in America." (Pulitzer.org)
General Non-Fiction Finalists
Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life, by Louise Aronson, an "empathetic and nuanced critique, informed by the author's decades of experience as a geriatrician, of the ways in which our society and healthcare system neglect, stereotype and mistreat the elderly." (Pulitzer.org)
Solitary, by Albert Woodfox with Leslie George, an "unflinching indictment of Louisiana's most notorious prison and the racist criminal justice system as told through an innocent man's redemptive journey faced with a life sentence in solitary confinement." (Pulitzer.org)
Jhalak Prize
First awarded in March 2017, the Jhalak Prize, seeks to celebrate books by British or British resident BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) writers. The prize accepts entries published in the UK by writers of colour. These include (and are not limited to) fiction, non-fiction, short stories, graphic novels, poetry, children’s books, YA, teen and all other genres. The prize is also open to self-published writers. It was established to support and celebrate writers of colour in Britain.
Longlist Announcement:9 March 2021. Shortlist Announcement: 13 April 2021. Winner announced: 25 May 2021
2020 Shortlist
Dean Atta - The Black Flamingo (Hodder Children’s) - See on Encore
Yvonne Battle-Felton - Remembered (Dialogue) - See on Encore
Candice Carty-Williams - Queenie (Orion) - Listen on BorrowBox or Find in your Library
Mary Jean Chan - Fleche (Faber) See on Encore
Romesh Gunesekera - Suncatcher (Bloomsbury) See on Encore
Johny Pitts - Afropean: Notes From Black Europe (Allen Lane) Read on BorrowBox
British Book Awards
The British Book Awards, or Nibbies, were launched in 1990 and are now run by The Bookseller. The awards celebrate not just the best books, but also the best bookshops and publishers - all those who participate in the success of the book. There are 25 individual award categories ranging from best author and best illustrator to best independent bookshop. The 2021 winners will be announced on May 13th on a virtual awards ceremony. The shortlists will be released on March 19th.
Book of the Year 2020 : Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams Listen on BorrowBox
The An Post Irish Book Awards
The An Post Irish Book Awards is one of the biggest literary events in Ireland and it brings together readers, authors, booksellers, publishers and librarians to celebrate Irish writing. From a small start in 2006 with 3 categories of award, it has grown to include 18 categories which span many genres. And, unlike lots of other literary awards, thousands of ordinary readers (yes that means you too) can vote to select the winners every year.
The Irish Book of the Year
Eason Novel of the Year
Irish Independent Crime Fiction Book of the Year
TheJournal.ie Best Irish-Published Book of the Year
Bookselling Ireland Cookbook of the Year
Odgers Berndtson Non-fiction Book of the Year, in association with the Business Post
Ireland AM Popular Non-fiction Book of the Year
National Book Tokens Popular Fiction Book of the Year
Specsavers Children’s Book of the Year – Junior
Specsavers Children’s Book of the Year – Senior
Dept 51 @ Eason Teen & Young Adult Book of the Year
The Bord Gais Energy Sports Book of the Year
The Sunday Independent Newcomer of the Year
RTÉ Radio 1’s Listeners’ Choice Award
Writing.ie Short Story of the Year
Listowel Writers’ Week Irish Poem of the Year
The Love Leabhar Gaeilge Irish Language Book of the Year
The Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award
International Recognition Award
The Bookshop of the Year
The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction
The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction was first awarded in 2009 and it recognises outstanding writing that is set in the past. For books to qualify the majority of the storyline must have taken place at least 60 years ago. It is open to books first published in the previous year in the UK, Ireland or the Commonwealth. The prize is awarded at the Borders Book Festival in Melrose, Scotland, in June every year. The winner receives £25,000 and shortlisted authors each receive £1000.
The Hugo Awards
The Hugo Awards, first presented in 1953 and presented annually since 1955, are science fiction’s most prestigious award. The Hugo Awards are voted on by members of the World Science Fiction Convention (“Worldcon”), which is also responsible for administering them.
Best Novel 2020 A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine (Tor; Tor UK) Reserve on BorrowBox
The 2019 awards were held in the Convention Centre in Dublin and were opened by Ellen Klages and well known Irish author Dave Rudden who had a runaway hit with the Knights of the Borrowed Dark series for children. Read a review of the winning novel “The Calculating Stars” by Mary Robinette Kowal in our Book Review Section
Book Awards for Children's Books
The KPMG Children's Books Ireland Awards
The KPMG Children’s Book of the Year Awards 2020 recognises excellence in writing and illustration in Irish or English and is open to authors and illustrators who were born in Ireland, are permanently resident in Ireland or are citizens of Ireland. The awards include: The Book of the Year Award, The Honour Award for Fiction, The Honour Award for Illustration, The Eilís Dillon Award (for a first children’s book), The Judges’ Special Award and The Junior Juries’ Award, the winner of which is chosen by hundreds of Junior Juries composed of young readers all over the island of Ireland. 10 books made it on to the shortlist in March and the winners were announced in May.
Winners
Book of the Year: Nóinín written by Máire Zepf
Honour Award for Fiction: Toffee by Sarah Crossan Reserve on BorrowBox
Honour Award for Illustration: The Tide illustrated by Ashling Lindsay
Eili Dillon Award Winner: Mór agus Muilc based on a traditional tale told by John Óg Hiúdaí Neidí Ó Colla and illustrated by Kim Sharkey
Shortlist
All The Bad Apples written by Moïra Fowley-Doyle Reserve on BorrowBox
Madame Badobedah written by Sophie Dahl and illustrated by Lauren O’Hara Reserve the audiobook on BorrowBox
Mór agus Muilc based on a traditional tale told by John Óg Hiúdaí Neidí Ó Colla and illustrated by Kim Sharkey
Nóinín written by Máire Zepf
The Deepest Breath written by Meg Grehan Reserve on BorrowBox
The Hug written by Eoin McLaughlin and illustrated by Polly Dunbar
The Tide written by Clare Helen Welsh and illustrated by Ashling Lindsay
The Star-Spun Web written by Sinéad O’Hart Reserve the ebook on BorrowBox
Toffee by Sarah Crossan Reserve on BorrowBox
Scúnc agus Smúirín written by Muireann Ní Chíobháin and illustrated by Paddy Donnelly
The CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Awards
The CILIP Carnegie Medal is awarded annually to a children’s book author whose writing creates an outstanding reading experience. It was established in 1936 in memory of the Scottish-born philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919).
The Kate Greenaway Medal, established in 1955, is named after the popular nineteenth century artist, known for her beautiful children’s illustrations and designs. The Kate Greenaway Medal is awarded annually to a children’s book illustrator whose artwork creates an outstanding reading experience.
Each year thousands of reading groups in schools and libraries in the UK and overseas get involved in the Awards, with children and young people ‘shadowing’ the judging process. They read, discuss and review the books on the shortlists, get involved in reading related activity in groups and vote for their favourite books to win the Shadowers’ Choice Awards.
About Inclusive Minds
Launched in 2013, Inclusive Minds is a collective for people who are passionate about inclusion, diversity, equality and accessibility in children’s literature and are committed changing the face of children’s books. Inclusive Minds offers a range of consultancy services and training, runs events such as A Place at the Table and founded the Everybody In charter and the network of Inclusion Ambassadors. The Inclusion Ambassadors Network is a team of young people (and some parents and youth workers) who share a real interest in seeing better representation of one or more facets of diversity. These are individuals (generally aged between 8 and 30) with important first-hand knowledge of particular facets of diversity and a genuine interest in sharing their expertise and experience to the benefit of children’s books.
The 2020 shortlists were announced in March. The winner was announced in June and the Shadower's Choice Awards will follow in October 2020.
Winner: Lark by Anthony McGowan (Barrington Stoke) Reserve on Encore
When Nicky and Kenny head for a trek across the moors to take their minds off of everything, a series of unforeseen circumstances leaves the brothers in a vulnerable and very dangerous position. There might even be a chance that this time they won’t all make it out alive.
2020 CILIP Carnegie Medal shortlist (alphabetical by author surname):
- The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta, illustrated by Anshika Khullar (Hachette Children’s Group)
- Nowhere on Earth by Nick Lake (Hachette Children’s Group)
- Lark by Anthony McGowan (Barrington Stoke) Reserve on Encore
- Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay (Little Tiger) Reserve the eBook on BorrowBox
- Lampie written and illustratedby Annet Schaap and translated by Laura Watkinson (Pushkin Children’s Books) Reserve the eBook on BorrowBox
- Voyages in the Underworld of Orpheus Black by Marcus Sedgwick and Julian Sedgwick, illustrated by Alexis Deacon (Walker Books)
- On the Come Up by Angie Thomas (Walker Books) Reserve the eBook on BorrowBox
- Girl. Boy. Sea. by Chris Vick (Head of Zeus)
2020 CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal Winner:
Tales from the Inner City by Shaun Tan (Reserve on Encore)
- A young girl’s cat brightens the lives of everyone in the neighbourhood. A woman and her dog are separated by time and space, awaiting the day they will be reunited. A race of fish build a society parallel to our own. And a bunch of office managers suddenly turn into frogs but find that their new lives aren’t so bad
Shortlist 2020
- You’re Snug with Me illustrated by Poonam Mistry and written by Chitra Soundar (Lantana Publishing)
- The Iron Man illustrated by Chris Mould and written by Ted Hughes (Faber & Faber)
- The Suitcase written and illustrated by Chris Naylor-Ballesteros (Nosy Crow)
- The Undefeated illustrated by Kadir Nelson and written by Kwame Alexander(Andersen Press)
- The Dam illustrated by Levi Pinfold and written by David Almond (Walker Books)
- Mary and Frankenstein illustrated by Júlia Sardà and written by Linda Bailey (Andersen Press)
- Tales from the Inner City written and illustrated by Shaun Tan (Walker Books)
- Child of St Kilda written and illustrated by Beth Waters (Child’s Play)
The Children's Book Award
The Federation of Children’s Book Groups (FCBG) began in the 1960s, driven by a desire from parents to learn more about children’s books, to encourage their children to read and to share passions and knowledge about children’s books with like-minded adults in their local areas. The FCBG are behind other successful initiatives in the UK, such as Share a Story Month (May), National Non-Fiction November . The Children's Book Award is the only children's award in the UK where the children vote for the books from start to finish. The 2020 shortlist titles are:
Books for Younger Children
Jazz Dog, written and illustrated by Marie Voigt, published by OUP
Matisse’s Magical Trail, written by Tim Hopgood and illustrated by Sam Boughton, published by OUP
The Runaway Pea, written by Kjartan Poskitt and illustrated by Alex Willmore, published by Simon & Schuster Children’s Books
Books for Younger Readers
Mutant Zombies Cursed My School Trip, written by Matt Brown and illustrated by Paco Sordo, published by Usborne
Owen and The Soldier, written by Lisa Thompson, published by Barrington Stoke
The Maker of Monsters, written by Lorraine Gregory, published by OUP
Books for Confident Readers
Wildspark, written by Vashti Hardy, published by Scholastic
A Pocketful of Stars, written by Aisha Busby, published by Egmont
D-Day Dog, written by Tom Palmer, published by Barrington Stoke
Books for Older Readers
Becoming Dinah, written by Kit de Waal, published by Hachette Children’s Group
On The Come Up, written by Angie Thomas, published by Walker Books
Two Can Keep a Secret, written by Karen M McManus, published by Penguin
The Lollies
The Laugh Out Loud Book Awards (the Lollies) are for the best and funniest children’s books in the UK and Ireland. Publishers submit titles for consideration by Scholastic who run the awards. A shortlist is announced and the winners are voted for by children. There are 3 categories of award: Picture Books, Books for 6-8-year-olds and Books for 9-13-year-olds. Check out the 2020 winners
Picture Book: Ten Fat Sausages by Michelle Robinson and Tor Freeman
for 6-8-year-olds: The World’s Worst Children 3 by David Walliams and Tony Ross
for 9-13-year-olds: I Bet I Can Make You Laugh by Joshua Seigal and Tim Wesson
© Meath County Council