Growing up in Ireland in the 1980s and 1990s, anyone interested in reading would be familiar with the Irish Writers poster. My Dad had the poster framed in his study and I had one on my bedroom wall, along with a set of Irish writers coasters. For several years I even had an Irish Writers…
I know I am but summer to your heart, and not the full four seasons of the year. ~ Edna St. Vincent Milay For over 50 years, 84-year-old William Trevor has written about the passions simmering beneath the surface of a world where hens are fed, confessions are said and the clock on the scullery…
I thought I knew Roddy Doyle and his work, but really, I didn’t have a clue. The Commitments, The Van, and The Snapper – I had read and enjoyed them. Everyone in Ireland did in the late 1990s. The movie adaptations were fun. The warm hearted, foul mouthed family focused characters were the stock in…
Read more No 689 The Woman Who Walked in to Doors by Roddy Doyle
It’s March, so that can only mean one thing. it’s Reading Ireland Month! Join myself and Niall at The Fluff is Raging as we spend the next four weeks celebrating all that is wonderful about Irish books and culture. It’s not going to be any craic without you, so grab the pin and add the…
When planning for Ireland Month, I brought together a list of 100 books by 100 Irish authors, both out of interest for myself and to give anyone thinking of taking part some inspiration for what to read. I thought 100 might be a little much so cut it down to 50, however since publishing it…
If there is a downside to writing a Booker shortlisted, critically acclaimed, best-selling, universally loved book like Skippy Dies, it may be that readers come to your first, lesser known novel and find themselves disappointed in it by comparison. This seems to be the online consensus and if I’m honest, I wasn’t expecting to like…
Last year we went to a holiday house in Donegal. There, on the shelves, I found a copy of Sebastian Barry’s The Secret Scripture, about an unconventional woman wrongly put into an institution which is about to close, harbouring secrets of the past that will ultimately change the lives of all involved. It was a…
Read more No 710 The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell
You can kind of lose yourself very quick, when all about you changes and things you thought you always would have turn out to be things you never really had, and things you were sure you’d have in the future turn out to be on the far side of a big, dark mountain that you…
In January of this year, an event was held in a community centre in East Belfast called Listening to Your Enemies. The Brighton bomber Patrick Magee was appearing in conversation with Jo Berry, who lost her father in that atrocity as part of the Forgiveness Project. Rioting broke out over several nights in protest at…
Sometimes – particularly after a book like Harvest – I like to treat myself to an entertaining, page-turning, ‘don’t have to think too hard’ thriller. That was the plan with Faithful Place, but I didn’t quite get what I bargained for. Faithful Place is Tana French’s third instalment in her Dublin Murder Squad series. Our…
By Crooked Cat author, Val Penny
There is nothing more satisfying than reading a book while sipping a hot cup of tea.
A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say. – Italo Calvino
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