Book news, reviews and recommendations
Irish writer Sheila Armstrong’s debut collection How to Gut a Fish came with a glowing endorsement from Roddy Doyle which was part of the lure for me; that and the hint of the surreal in its blurb. The collection comprises fourteen stories, none more than twenty pages long, each very different from the other. As […]
How to Gut a Fish by Sheila Armstrong: A striking, idiosyncratic collection Read More »
I started seeing Sarah Gilmartin’s Dinner Party in my Twitter timeline a good eight or nine months before it was due to be published, something that tends to put me off more often than not, but I liked the sound of this novel that begins with the titular gathering then explores the fraught family dynamics
Dinner Party by Sarah Gilmartin: A tragedy Read More »
I’d been looking forward to reading Naoise Dolan’s Exciting Times for a while when I was offered a review copy. Nolan’s debut is one of the five titles shortlisted for the Sunday Times/University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year award which I helped shadow judge two years ago. I have very fond memories of
Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan: The art of self-sabotage Read More »
Caoilinn Hughes’ debut, The Orchid and the Wasp, made a quite a splash in the literary pool when it was published back in 2018. I started it but couldn’t get on with the style so was in two minds whether to read The Wild Laughter when it turned up but Cathy at 746 Books rated
The Wild Laughter by Caoilinn Hughes: Brotherly love, or the lack of it Read More »
I grew up in a village with my sights firmly fixed on escaping to the city which was what attracted me to You Have to Make Your Own Fun Around Here. That title says it all for those of us who couldn’t wait to get away. Beginning in the 1990s, Frances Macken’s debut is set
You Have to Make Your Own Fun Around Here by Frances Macken: What are friends for… Read More »
I’d not come across Hilary Fannin until The Weight of Love started popping up on my Twitter timeline. Her name will no doubt be more familiar to Irish readers thanks to her prize-winning column in the Irish Times. She’s also known as a playwright and memoirist but this is her first novel, a delicately nuanced
The Weight of Love by Hilary Fannin: ‘There were three of us in this marriage’ Read More »
It was its Berlin setting that first attracted me to Adrian Duncan’s Love Notes From a German Building Site, an irresistible backdrop for me. I’d somehow thought it was a love story, quite possibly an unhappy one, but it turned out to be very much more interesting than that. Duncan’s debut follows a couple in
Love Notes From a German Building Site by Adrian Duncan: Men at Work Read More »
Mary Costello’s Academy Street was one of my books of 2014. The story of one woman’s attenuated life, I loved it for its small canvas and pared back prose, including it in both my Man Booker and Women’s Prize for Fiction wish lists. It popped up again here earlier in the week as one of
The River Capture by Mary Costello: Madness, Joyce and obsession Read More »
Back in May I reviewed Luis Carrasco’s El Hacho, the first publication from époque press, with which I was very impressed. Lynn Buckle’s novel is their second and could not be more different. Not that it isn’t impressive but whereas El Hacho was a timeless, fable-like novella written in clean, spare prose, The Groundsmen explores
The Groundsmen by Lynn Buckle: A Greek tragedy of a novel Read More »