Skulduggery Pleasant Named Irish Book of the Decade

In What's the Buzz by Siobhan O'Leary

By Siobhan O’Leary

The young adult title Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy has bested titles by heavyweights Colm Tóibín, Cecelia Ahern, John Banville and Colum McCann to win the Irish Book Of The Decade title awarded by the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards (the award ceremony will take place in November 2010).

The book, part of a four title series about a 12-year-old girl and a skeleton detective, received about 5,000 votes in the online poll, according to the Irish Times.

The four books in the series have sold about a million copies in Ireland and the UK since the first title was published three years ago. The books have also been translated into 33 languages. As Landy wittily told the Irish Times, “I’m quite popular in Germany. I’m the David Hasselhoff of Ireland.”

About the Author

Siobhan O'Leary

Siobhan O’Leary is a literary agent, translator and writer based in Berlin. She previously worked in the Foreign Rights department of the Crown Publishing Group (Random House) and at the publishing consulting firm Market Partners International.