The Irish Times assembled a panel of 60 experts – authors, critics, academics, festival curators, booksellers and journalists – to decide the best Irish novels and short story collections of the years 2000-2025. The result was a ranked list of 100 works of fiction, with Milkman by Anna Burns (2018) decided as the best Irish book of the 21st century. With almost 2,000 votes cast, Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (2021) was chosen by readers as the best book. Although the expert panel favoured Milkman, Keegan’s haunting story of institutional abuse by the Catholic Church was not far behind in fourth place. To determine the best books of the 21st century so far, our experts initially each submitted 50 favourites.

Source: The Times March 26, 2025 21:50 UTC