Book news, reviews and recommendations
Despite its door-stopping proportions I couldn’t resist Catherine Airey’s much trumpeted debut with its promise of an involving tale of two Irish sisters, one of whom emigrates to New York to take up an art school scholarship ticking two of my literary boxes. Máire and Rósín’s stories span decades beginning in the 1970s when they’re […]
Confessions by Catherine Airey: Choose your own adventure Read More »
I’m surprised it’s taken me so long to do a second Five Books I’ve Read post on Irish novels given how many excellent ones I’ve read since I started this feature. The five below are a mix of Irish and Northen Irish all with links to reviews on this blog, beginning with a writer who’s
Five More Irish Novels I’ve Read Read More »
I liked the premise of Orla Mackey’s Mouthing. It put me in mind of Robert Seethaler’s The Field in which the dead remember their village, filled with all the gossip, machinations and scandalmongering you might expect from such a small community. Mackey’s debut tells the story of Ballygowan, tucked away in rural Ireland, over several
Mouthing by Orla Mackey: ‘Night night now. Tomorrow will be lovely’ Read More »
This is the latest in a series of occasional posts featuring books I read years ago about which I was wildly enthusiastic at the time, wanting to press a copy in as many hands as I could. Regular readers may have gathered that I’m fan of Colm Tóibín’s writing. His name appears on my About
Blasts from the Past: The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Tóibín (1999) Read More »
Back in 2022, I read Niamh Mulvey’s short story collection, Hearts and Bones, one of many strikingly good books I read by Irish women that year, so I was delighted when her first novel popped up on NetGalley. The Amendments follows three generations of women, from the 1970s to 2018 when Nell and her partner
The Amendments by Niamh Mulvey: ‘We are not pro-abortion, we are pro-woman.’ Read More »
I’d not come across Bridget O’Connor’s writing until I was sent a nice little package of links to various spring titles by her publisher just before Christmas. An acclaimed short story writer and playwright, O’Connor died in 2010, aged only forty-nine. After a Dance is a collection of fifteen of her stories all but one
After a Dance by Bridget O’Connor: Dark, funny and occasionally surreal Read More »
I was delighted when a proof of Paul Lynch’s Booker-longlisted Prophet Song dropped through my letter box. I’d been so impressed by his novella, Beyond the Sea, that I’d included it on my 2019 books of the year list. Set in a near future Ireland in the grips of an increasingly authoritarian regime, his new
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch: There but for the grace… Read More »
That subtitle isn’t a quote from Sebastian Barry’s new novel – as some of you may have spotted, it’s the opening line from Ford Maddox Ford’s The Good Soldier – but it’s the phrase that came into my head many times while reading it. Set in mid-1990s Ireland, Old God’s Time follows a recently retired
Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry: ‘This is the saddest story I have ever heard’ Read More »
I’ve read and enjoyed David Park’s fiction before, admiring his quietly elegant style, and was keen to read Spies in Canaan, putting it aside for a little while after it popped through my letterbox. In the event, I read it against the backdrop of Russia’s preparations for invading Ukraine, horribly appropriate for this novel which
Spies in Canaan by David Park: ‘Stand up straight and true’ Read More »
This is the second novel I’ve reviewed this year with a backdrop of The Troubles. Set in the 1979 on a tiny remote Irish island rather than in a 1993 Ulster village, Audrey Magee’s The Colony is very different from Jan Carson’s The Raptures. Two men make their way to the island, planning to spend
The Colony by Audrey Magee: Two sides of the story Read More »
It’s a mystery to me why I’ve not read anything by Claire Keegan before given my predilection for Irish writing, particularly as Cathy over at 746Books has spoken so highly of her work. Small Things Like These is the briefest of novellas, a mere 124 pages with a good deal of white space thrown in