A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne is this weekend’s Irish Times offer at Eason

Sue Rainsford has won the 2019 Kate O’Brien Award for her novel Follow Me to Ground, published by New Island last year and to be released in Britain by Doubleday in August. It has also been longlisted for the Republic of Consciousness award. The Surface Breaks by Louise O’Neill has been shortlisted for the YA Book Prize, which she previously won in 2015 for Only Ever Yours.

Coming up in Saturday’s Irish Times books pages, Jamie Camplin looks at the history of books and authors in paintings; Sarah Davis-Goff writes about her debut novel Last Ones Left Alive and the transition from successful publisher at Tramp Press to author.

Reviews include Jaki McCarrick on Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James; Sarah Gilmartin on Show Them a Good Time by Nicole Flattery; Alan Murrin on The Narrow Land by Christine Dwyer Hickey; Houman Barekat on Tunnel Vision by Kevin Breathnach; Jim Smyth on Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in History by Richard J Evans; Rob Doyle on America by Jean Baudrillard, translated by Chris Turner; Henriettta McKervey on Mouth Full of Blood by Toni Morrison; Paul Clements on the best new local history; Karl Whitney on Evan Ratliff’s The Mastermind: The Hunt for the World’s Most Prolific Criminal; Paul D’Alton on War Doctor by David Nott; and Sara Keating on the best new children’s books.