Light reads, accessible history and gripping novels are championed by the people we asked to recommend their best reads of 2017, writes Richard Fitzpatrick.

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.

FIVE years ago, Cork University Press published The Atlas of the Great Irish Famine. That the book was named the best Irish book published in 2012 gave only a hint of how comprehensive it is and how influential it was to become in our appreciation of that awful time.

Our coastal islands possess fascinating stories but the almost countless islands on Irish lakes have their fair share of stories too: an abandoned hippy colony on Roeillaun in Lough Corrib Co Galway; a round tower sacked by the Vikings on Devenish Island, Co Fermanagh. 

On the 40th anniversary of Éamon de Valera’s death, his biographer Ryle Dwyer examines the changing perceptions of the long fellow including why he was called a spy.

Thomas McCarthy on a perceptive analysis of Eavan Boland’s work and an attempt “to put the layers of gold back into contemporary poetry”.

One-in-seven students have been bullied while at college and a quarter received unwanted sexual attention, research has found.

US president Barack Obama, has said he intends to return to Ireland for a visit but was unable to give a commitment to travel South when he attends the G8 summit in County Fermanagh in June.

“I want to welcome you. It gives me an excuse to break out my green tie!”

THE title of this new book from Cork University Press, Viewpoints: Theoretical Perspectives on Irish Visual Texts, promises to lead the reader into intriguing and less-travelled territories.

I read your report (Jan 29) on an article by John Martin of the Center for Research and Globalization in Montreal, Canada on a part of our history that is not on the national consciousness yet, like the Great Famine. But it is getting there.

At Home in Ireland

Ireland’s top writers moved from the page to the stage in style to accept prizes at the 2012 Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards at the RDS.

A range of fun and inspiring cookbooks from Irish and UK publishers this year makes Christmas gift shopping a doddle. Roz Crowley picks the best

Condensed essays on individual novels are too short for academics and too analytical for the public, but will appeal to students, says Val Nolan

This wonderful atlas has been updated to reflect the madness of the Celtic Tiger decade. William J Smyth is impressed by the results

Who owns 1916 and what can we learn from the 1966 50th celebrations of the Rising wonders Diarmaid Ferriter

Mentally surveying some of the delights of spring which are almost over, I recall with gratitude the striking little alpine (rockery) plant which is sold under the name of Arenaria Montana.

Class played a major role in Munster rugby in Munster. A new book sheds light on this and other fascinating developments, writes John Breen

YOU wouldn’t really want to be a passenger in the car when Zoe Devlin’s doing the driving — she’d have you in the ditch, within minutes, one way or the other.

Elizabeth Bowen’s Selected Irish Writings. Edited by Eibhear Walshe, Cork University Press, €39.

Irish Blood, English Heart

CARMEL SOMERS, owner of the iconic Good Things café in Durrus developed her love and appreciation of good food in her childhood “while surrounded by lavish roast dinners, meticulous baking and too much butter”.

THE head of one of the country’s largest colleges has asked his 2,800-plus staff to work a week without pay as part of a package of cost-cutting measures designed to plug a €7 million hole in its finances.

THE history of Cork is built around the River Lee and the access to the open sea.

National debates on social issues, such as during the Lisbon Treaty referendum campaign, could trigger moving statues or even apparitions, it was claimed today.

A WAR of words erupted last night over claims that millions of people have been kissing the wrong Blarney Stone.

THE Bloody Sunday atrocity in Derry in 1972 has spawned more songs, films and poems than any other atrocity of the Troubles, a new book claims.

Damien Enright reviews a chronicle of an Ireland fast fading.

THE mysterious world beneath the waves is a continuing source of fascination which, through the use of ever-improving technology, is giving up more of its secrets.

THOSE familiar with Ireland’s most innovative vegetarian restaurant will know just how good a chef Denis Cotter is. Even the most committed carnivores salivate at the fare on offer in Café Paradiso, the restaurant he and his wife, Bridget, opened in 1993.

An Irish book publisher is searching for an author in hiding for 10 years after she wrote a book about a triple murder.