Penguin Random House South Africa

Categories: Contemporary Fiction, Fiction, International Fiction, Adult
ISBN: 9781529920093
Published: June 2024
Imprint: Vintage
Page Extent: 304
Format: Paperback
RRP 275.00

How to Build a Boat

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About the book

** SHORTLISTED FOR BEST NOVEL OF THE YEAR, IRISH BOOK AWARDS 2023 **
** LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2023 **

Meet Jamie and his community on the west coast of Ireland in the most uplifting and tender book of the year

'A gorgeous gift of a novel'
Douglas Stuart, no.1 bestselling author of Shuggie Bain

'Heart-rending and delightful'
Louise Kennedy, no.1 bestselling author of Trespasses


Jamie O'Neill loves the colour red. He also loves tall trees, patterns, rain that comes with wind, the curvature of many objects, books with dust jackets, cats, rivers and Edgar Allan Poe. At age 13 there are two things he especially wants in life: to build a Perpetual Motion Machine, and to connect with his mother Noelle, who died...

About the Author

Elaine Feeney

Elaine Feeney

Elaine Feeney is an acclaimed novelist and poet from the West of Ireland. Her debut novel, As You Were, was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Irish Novel of the Year Award, and won the Kate O’Brien Award, the McKitterick Prize and the Dalkey Festival Emerging Writer Award. How to Build a Boat was also shortlisted for Irish Novel of the Year, longlisted for the Booker Prize, and was a New Yorker Best Book of the Year. With her third novel, Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way, Feeney was shortlisted again for Irish Novel of the Year and won the Library Association of Ireland Author of the Year. Feeney has published the poetry collections Where’s Katie?, The Radio Was Gospel, Rise and All the Good Things You Deserve, and lectures at the University of Galway.

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