SCC English Books of the Year

The annual selection of books published in either hardback or paperback for the first time this year.

(Here is our annual round-up of Books of the Year lists).


Book of the Year
David Park: Travelling in a Strange Land. Short, absorbing, deeply moving. Park flies under the radar in terms of Irish fiction. This is outstanding.


Fiction:
Melatu Uche Okorie: This Hostel Life. Three short stories that have a big impact. A new angle on Irish life. Let's hope she's writing a novel.

Sara Baume:A Line Made by Walking. A dreamy, dreaming voice in the countryside.

William Trevor: Last Stories. Published posthumously: what a standard for a man in his 80s.

Kamila Shamsie: Home Fire. It handles a lot, and handles it brilliantly.

Tim Winton: The Shepherd's Hut. Author of last year's Book of the Year, The Boy Behind the Curtain. Does anyone match him for a sense of place? 

Non-Fiction:
Maryanne Wolf: Reader, Come Home: the reading brain in a digital world. A deep meditation.

Emilie Pine: Notes to Self. The best book of essays this year. How to write about yourself with brutal and moving honesty.

Fintan O'Toole: Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain. The definitive analysis of the horror show we're living through.

Mary Beard: Women and Power. What a strong voice.

Richard Ford: Between Them. On his parents. You never stop being a child at any time of your life.

Michelle McNamara: I'll be Gone in the Dark. True-crime chiller, with a dramatic post-publication development.