If we are what we read, who are we? The books that inspired Ireland in 2021

Joyce Fegan charts eight books that topped our nation’s reading lists in 2021 and asks well-known readers why these books are so compelling

If 2020 was a “distortion” in the world of bookselling and reading then 2021 was a “further distortion” explains Tomás Kenny of Kennys Bookshop Galway. Picture: Dean Kelly

There is what the critics say and then, there’s what the public says.

Book sales and a book’s place on a chart can allow us to take the temperature of a nation.