Comic-fantasy novel Skulduggery Pleasant was today announced the winner of the Irish Book of the Decade competition.
The book by Dubliner Derek Landy topped an internet poll to decide the nation’s favourite Irish book, with almost 5,000 votes cast over the last month.
“The wonderful thing about this award is that it was open to every category, and so books for younger readers were as relevant as adult literary novels,” Mr Landy said.
Alastair Giles, executive director of the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards said two thirds of the novels on the 50-strong shortlist were literary novels by giants such as John McGahern, Anne Enright, Colm Tobin and William Trevor. "By beating such opposition in the poll, Derek Landy has shown us how young readers can be energised to care about books and reading," he said.
The shortlist touched on all points in between John Banville's Booker-winning meditation of art and mortality The Sea and Cecilia Ahern's wildly popular chick-lit PS I Love You.
It included John McGahern's Memoir, Diarmaid Ferriter's Judging Dev, Keane, by Roy Keane, John Boyne's The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and Should Have Got Off at Sydney Parade by the laureate of the noughties, Ross O'Carroll-Kelly.
Other popular fiction writers in the shortlist included Maeve Binchy (Heart and Soul) Cathy Kelly (Lessons in Heartbreak) and Marian Keyes (This Charming Man).