Our regular contributors select their highlights of the year.

When Greta Thunberg told world leaders at the UN, “People are suffering, people are dying, entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth,” world leaders dismissed her.

CAREER paths don’t always follow a linear route. Just ask social media star and bestselling author Melanie Murphy, who took a few years out after her Leaving Cert before deciding on what she wanted to study.

Marian Keyes often uses a phrase that her grandmother used to say: “I don’t have the houlding out.”

Diary of a Wimpy Kid and The BFG are also among the books checked out most often.

Among the 1,715 University of Limerick students who celebrated their graduations yesterday was Dr Sindy Joyce, who became the first Traveller in Ireland to graduate with a PhD.

A posthumous award will be given to the family of the late Dolores O’Riordan.

Here's your lunchtime bulletin.

The media, in certain instances, need to accept that ‘both sidism’ is simply a broken concept when dealing with someone like Trump who will lie and spread false facts like soft butter, writes Alison O’Connor.

The sold-out Electric Picnic, which heralds the end of the summer and had Hozier play a surprise gig, came to an electrifying close last night with The Prodigy and their ‘Firestarter’.

Marian Keyes, Eimear McBride, and Edna O’Brien join JK Rowling and Harper Lee on a list of the 100 essential books by female writers from the past 100 years, according to a new poll.

If the yes campaign was bruised by a drop in the polls last week, it certainly wasn’t showing at the launch on Thursday of Hear Me Out, an initiative encouraging people to talk to undecided voters ahead of Friday’s referendum.

Health Minister Simon Harris has accused some no canvassers of “ridiculing mental health” as the Eighth Amendment referendum campaign enters its final days.

Dubray Books have announced that they will be donating all of the profits to

She has overcome obstacles, from shyness to cancer to advancing in the once male-dominated bastion of the GAA committee room. So thriving as the first female chair of Cork County Board won’t faze Tracey Kennedy. But she does want to represent females in the GAA and be an effective voice for inclusiveness and change...

While I may not agree with every woman I meet, or even like them, I am still committed to using my voice, such as it is, to amplifying the voices of the women around me, writes Louise O’Neill

Last month, I was given the James Joyce award by the Literary and Historical Society of UCD. It is the highest award that an Irish University can bestow upon an individual, and is reserved for those who ‘have achieved outstanding success in their given field’. 

Cork was a big winner at last night’s Bord Gáis Energy Book Awards, as the critically acclaimed history tome Atlas of the Irish Revolution picked up the Best Irish Published Book of the Year.

Marian Keyes, Roddy Doyle, and Cecelia Ahern have all been shortlisted for the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards.

David Walliams will also recive the ‘Bord Gáis Energy International Recognition Award on the night.

Every Irish woman will identify with Aisling, the comic creation of friends, Sarah Breen and Emer McLysaght, says Ciara McDonnell.

And yes, from the most expensive lamb featuring as a guest last week, they have already reached peak Irishness.

Yes, we plan on framing some of the epic replies.

Eithne has always wanted to achieve things young. She was first published aged 11, receiving £20 for a poem. At 21, she joined The Sunday Times, but took a break after a year to live in Paris and write.

Eamon Ryan’s recommended reading list sparks talk of book club

A prolific reader as a child Fiona Harrison tells Sue Leonard how she wrote stories about Roland Rat who would help Margaret Thatcher run the government.

A two-minute video depicting Irish women’s journeys across the Irish Sea to access abortions received almost quarter of a million views in its first 24 hours online.

Ciara Geraghty may examine big themes in her books, but clearly cares most of all about the people in the foreground, as do her readers. Self-declared fan Sue Leonard met her for coffee.

RTÉ reporter Olivia O’Leary is the latest in an ever-growing line of famous Irish faces to admit they have suffered from depression and undergone treatment. Slowly, the country’s cynical view of mental health is changing for the better, writes Claire O’Sullivan

Marian Keyes’ latest book, Making It Up As I Go Along, is a collection of essays about modern life. The writer, now on the ‘other side’ of crippling depression, tells Hannah Stephenson why she’s accepted that life doesn’t always come with a rule book

Rebelling against her parent’s wishes that she attend Trinity College Dublin, Averil joined the Irish Times as a cub reporter. 

Cue 90s flashback.

I was astonished by Jennifer Hough’s article (Irish Examiner, May 26) re the Roscommon vote on same-sex marriage. She implies it was a stain on the Roscommon family escutcheon.

Jacket design is crucial in attracting readers, so choosing a look has to be a team effort. But what, Ailin Quinlan asks, makes a great cover?

If you want to look and feel better, Tanya Sweeney says the best way of tackling a New Year to-do list is to conquer a manageable goal every month.

The Woman who Stole My Life

To find Marian Keyes eating the face off Marian Finucane on Twitter is like finding your budgie savaging your alsatian.

Many novels include a damsel in distress, but for one of Ireland’s leading authors, it was a "Hailo"ed-saint not a knight who came to her aid.

CLAUDIA CARROLL is a born storyteller, whether on stage or screen, as a novelist or in person with anecdotes of pals’ romantic entanglements and stories of love gone awry.

IT STRUCK a sensitive nerve when the poet WJ Mc Cormack, aka Hugh Maxton, this week defended Aosdána’s annual funding of €2.7 million by mentioning that Fair City cost €11 million. This fact was met, according to an RTÉ report, with laughter from the floor of Aosdána’s general assembly meeting at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham.

Bestselling author Marian Keyes has opened up about admitting herself to a psychiatric hospital when she was having suicidal thoughts 24 hours a day.

Drinks giant Diageo is to pay for extra gardaí to be brought onto the streets of cities around the country to police Arthur’s Day celebrations tonight.