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Backstage At Beatles Christmas Show
Book review: ‘One of the best — and sweetest — books of the year’
'A Love Story in Songs' is a real achievement. Superbly written, the author keenly respects the line between theorist and therapist, fan and journalist, and avoids any needless blurring

Fri, 28 Mar, 2025

Happy cute child flying on the book on white background.
Children's books review: Overcoming adversity, historical thrills, and a cracking Easter read
With life lessons, farmyard fun, and Morse code, there’s much to delight young readers in these new books, writes Pet O’Connell

Sun, 23 Mar, 2025

Book review: A salacious tale of murder on the border of fact and fiction
Book review: A salacious tale of murder on the border of fact and fiction
Author Eoin McNamee says there has always been blood on the floor in his books but 'this time some of the blood is mine'

Sat, 22 Mar, 2025

Book review: A monumental intellectual undertaking that demands much of the reader
Book review: A monumental intellectual undertaking that demands much of the reader
Poet James Harpur's latest collection, 'The Gospel of Gargoyle', shows what a true artist he is

Sat, 22 Mar, 2025

Beginner's pluck: Journalist and author Róisín Lanigan
Beginner's pluck: Journalist and author Róisín Lanigan
'I Want To Go Home But I’m Already There' is funny, engaging, and thought-provoking

Sat, 22 Mar, 2025

Books are my business: Librarian Mary Conway
Books are my business: Librarian Mary Conway
Mary Conway is the Waterford City and County librarian and head of culture covering libraries and arts

Sat, 22 Mar, 2025

Book review: Oxford professor challenges Christianity's model of a 'male and female' binary system
Book review: Oxford professor challenges Christianity's model of a 'male and female' binary system
Diarmaid MacCulloch's history of sex and Christianity touches on knotty issues such as the distinction between sex and gender, contraception and how sex has played an important role in 'promoting right-wing secular politics'

Sat, 22 Mar, 2025

Prime Minister of Canada visit to UK
Book review: The Irishman behind Labour’s return to power in Britain
Macroom man Morgan McSweeney, this fascinating book tells us, has saved Britain’s Labour Party

Fri, 21 Mar, 2025

Book review: A landscape reflecting reality
Book review: A landscape reflecting reality
'The Lighthouse Keeper’s Wife' proves itself a must-read for both history fans and those eager to immerse themselves in a stormy world and batten down the hatches

Sat, 15 Mar, 2025

Beginner’s pluck: Cork-based author Patrick Holloway
Beginner’s pluck: Cork-based author Patrick Holloway
'The Language of Remembering' is a powerful, original family story from a wonderfully talented writer

Sat, 15 Mar, 2025

Sir Geoffrey De Havilland
Book review: Exploring the ordinary, adventurous heroes of the golden age of aviation
The Moth, a two-seater airplane launched by Geoffrey de Havilland in 1925, was central to many of the great aviation feats and records set over the next 12 years

Sat, 15 Mar, 2025

Book review: Mary O’Malley’s 10th book of poetry is a masterpiece
Book review: Mary O’Malley’s 10th book of poetry is a masterpiece
'The Shark Nursery' is a one-of-a-kind book, filled with achingly beautiful poems that show a true artist at her absolute peak

Sat, 15 Mar, 2025

Eight-year-old girl enjoying a read in the open air
Children's book reviews: 12 books for March with Children's Book Ireland
Springtime brings plenty of fresh reads for children of all ages

Fri, 14 Mar, 2025

Incineration of electronic waste on the biggest electronic scrap yard of Africa in Accra
Book review: The toxic truth behind the West’s deluded recycling myth
'Waste Wars' is a book that will make you angry because you believe that once you empty your bins and return your plastic bottle, that you have played your part in saving the world

Fri, 14 Mar, 2025

Beginner’s pluck: Dublin-born author Sharon Guard 
Beginner’s pluck: Dublin-born author Sharon Guard 
'Assembling Ailish' captures a time and a place with authenticity and eloquence

Sat, 08 Mar, 2025

Ali Smith
Book review: Reflections on the silver screen
There are 14 essays in this slight collection, edited by Adrian Duncan, Niamh Dunphy, and Nathan O’Donnell, a welcome annual literary addition a la 'Winter Papers'

Sat, 08 Mar, 2025

Books are my business: Bookstation's head of marketing Alan Johnston
Books are my business: Bookstation's head of marketing Alan Johnston
There’s a huge amount of forecasting involved in my job, what we’re going to sell, how many books we’re going to need

Sat, 08 Mar, 2025

Book review: The business of pop music — as much who you know as what you know
Book review: The business of pop music — as much who you know as what you know
Drawing from secondary sources only, the author does well to remind us of the importance of solid, coherent management in an industry known for its flakiness and impatience

Sat, 08 Mar, 2025

Exhibition to celebrate legacy and values of JFK
Book review: The Kennedy plot that you may not know
The JFK Conspiracy is about a little publicised assassination attempt in the weeks between the voting day, November 8, 1960, and the inauguration on January 20, 1961.

Sat, 08 Mar, 2025

Author interview: Art and culture can save us, even in the most desperate of times
Author interview: Art and culture can save us, even in the most desperate of times
Tallaght native Ferdia Lennon has been making waves in the world of literature since graduating with a masters in prose fiction from the University of East Anglia

Fri, 07 Mar, 2025

Catherine Kirwan: A love letter to a city in desperate need of affection
Catherine Kirwan: A love letter to a city in desperate need of affection
Cork is a wonderful place to live, full of history and inspiration, but a lot needs to change if it’s to fulfil its true potential

Fri, 07 Mar, 2025

Mayo's Sally Rooney up for British Book Award — along with Gillian Anderson and Boris Johnson
Mayo's Sally Rooney up for British Book Award — along with Gillian Anderson and Boris Johnson
British Book Award winners will be announced at a ceremony in central London on Monday, May 12

Fri, 07 Mar, 2025

Book review: A dark debut with plenty of thrills from Amy Jordan
Book review: A dark debut with plenty of thrills from Amy Jordan
If you are to read one book this month and want plenty of twists that amount in an explosive finale, make it 'The Dark Hours'

Sat, 01 Mar, 2025

Beginner’s pluck: Full-time writer Nussaibah Younis
Beginner’s pluck: Full-time writer Nussaibah Younis
'Fundamentally', centred around a programme to deradicalise ISIS women in Iraq, is informative, funny, clever, and quite beautifully observed

Sat, 01 Mar, 2025

Books are my business: Literary agent Faith O’Grady 
Books are my business: Literary agent Faith O’Grady 
My job is to find authors whose work I am excited about and to sell their work to publishers

Sat, 01 Mar, 2025

Book review: One woman’s pursuit of true love and a lifelong dream
Book review: One woman’s pursuit of true love and a lifelong dream
There’s so much that’s familiar in Roisin Meaney’s 'Moving On', from young love to the excitement of living in a big city like London, from starting a career to starting a family

Sat, 01 Mar, 2025

Book review: A myth with modern themes
Book review: A myth with modern themes
An essential element of historical fiction is how it incorporates contemporary preoccupations and 'The Morrigan' imaginatively engages with some of today’s most polarising anxieties

Sat, 01 Mar, 2025

Author interview: ‘Women’s fear of being unkind can limit what we challenge’
Author interview: ‘Women’s fear of being unkind can limit what we challenge’
(Un)kind is a fascinating and well-researched study of how a deceptively positive slogan can have a far-reaching impact on how women are viewed and treated

Fri, 28 Feb, 2025

Karl Whitney: A story is a deal but a book is not an aubergine
Karl Whitney: A story is a deal but a book is not an aubergine
Conventional story structures often feel tired and even off-putting, but writing can be so much richer

Fri, 28 Feb, 2025

Book review: Revealing dark family secrets
Book review: Revealing dark family secrets
Stretching out across 50 years and a variety of locations, Carmel Harrington’s newest book relies heavily on her ability to write convincing characters

Sat, 22 Feb, 2025

Book review: Fractured story delicately and expertly woven with sheer immersive greatness
Book review: Fractured story delicately and expertly woven with sheer immersive greatness
As a piece of writing 'The City Changes Its Face' is absolutely in a class of its own, with an inventive and often witty prose style telling a complex story in a spell-binding way that has a rare physicality about it

Sat, 22 Feb, 2025

Books are my business: Gill Books commissioning editor Sarah Liddy
Books are my business: Gill Books commissioning editor Sarah Liddy
An internship at Lilliput Press  was the lucky break that got Sarah Liddy in the door of a publishing house and she has built her career from that 

Sat, 22 Feb, 2025

"Whitey:United States Of America V. James J. Bulger" New York Premiere - Arrivals And Q & A
Book review: A literary artifact to be celebrated
Gay Talese was an inveterate chronicler of the New York city and all who sailed in her for more than half a century

Sat, 22 Feb, 2025

Beginner’s pluck: French-born writer Claire-Lise Kieffer
Beginner’s pluck: French-born writer Claire-Lise Kieffer
Many of the stories featured in 'Tenterhooks' started as submissions on her creative writing fiction class

Sat, 22 Feb, 2025

Author interview: A pivot to ‘cosy crime’ requires a high level of literary craftsmanship
Author interview: A pivot to ‘cosy crime’ requires a high level of literary craftsmanship
The worlds that I’m creating with the detective novels and with 'Learwife' are different. They’re going to do very different things for you

Fri, 21 Feb, 2025

Children’s book reviews: Doomsday tales of growing up in Ireland leaves tails wagging
Children’s book reviews: Doomsday tales of growing up in Ireland leaves tails wagging
Pet O’Connell rounds up a selection of the latest children’s books from the horror of trying to fit in, to getting stuck in to a rugby scrum, and of pooches trying to get back home

Fri, 21 Feb, 2025

Author interview: A novel about the women who leave — and the ones who stay
Author interview: A novel about the women who leave — and the ones who stay
To write her book, Airey herself had to do some leaving of her own — moving from London back to her ancestral home in West Cork

Sat, 15 Feb, 2025

Books are my business: Children’s Books Ireland CEO Elaina Ryan
Books are my business: Children’s Books Ireland CEO Elaina Ryan
We have a very simple vision which is ‘every child a reader’

Sat, 15 Feb, 2025

2015 Man Booker Prize For Fiction - Short list Press Conference
Book review: Pacy novel is full of charm
At 165 pages, it is one of Tyler’s shortest novels, and this hyper focus on just three days means we’re thrust right into the narrative straight away

Sat, 15 Feb, 2025

Book review:  Immersive novel that shows talents of Mulkerns on centenary of her birth
Book review:  Immersive novel that shows talents of Mulkerns on centenary of her birth
Val Mulkerns' 'A Time Unworn' is a magical coming of age story which was first published in 1951

Sat, 15 Feb, 2025

Book review: Missing the home that was escaped from
Book review: Missing the home that was escaped from
Elaine Garvey, who has had stories published in 'Stinging Fly' and 'Winter Papers', is especially good at dialogue, with a witty, often biting turn of phrase

Sat, 15 Feb, 2025

Author interview: Trusting her instinct paid off as Scarlett follows up ‘Boys Don’t Cry’
Author interview: Trusting her instinct paid off as Scarlett follows up ‘Boys Don’t Cry’
There are many issues covered in 'May All Your Skies Be Blue' — from early onset Alzheimer’s to how the effect of alcoholism runs through a family 

Fri, 14 Feb, 2025

Book review: Remembering the GAA members killed during the Troubles
Book review: Remembering the GAA members killed during the Troubles
The 1970s were statistically the worst times of the Troubles. There were 2,096 killings between 1970 and 1979, and 68 of these were members of the GAA

Sat, 08 Feb, 2025

Beginner’s pluck: Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing Garrett Carr
Beginner’s pluck: Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing Garrett Carr
'The Boy from the Sea' is a mesmerising, meditative debut; reminiscent of John McGahern and Jon McGregor

Sat, 08 Feb, 2025

Books are my business: Picture book illustrator and author Paddy Donnelly
Books are my business: Picture book illustrator and author Paddy Donnelly
Most of the time, I illustrate other people’s stories — for every three or four I do for someone else, I do one of my own

Sat, 08 Feb, 2025

Book review: The scary cost of immortality
Book review: The scary cost of immortality
This novel, relayed through the testimonies of seven people and interspersed with events in the badlands in 2022, is as mesmerising as the central character — 'the woman'

Sat, 08 Feb, 2025

Book review: Enchanted by the spirit of resistance
Book review: Enchanted by the spirit of resistance
O’Connor’s new book is the sequel to 'My Father’s House', his magnificent novel based on the real-life adventures of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, the Kerry-born Vatican priest

Fri, 07 Feb, 2025

Author interview: ‘The greatest things that we do in life are always about a group’
Author interview: ‘The greatest things that we do in life are always about a group’
Joseph O’Connor’s novel celebrates forgotten heroes of the Second World War, and reminds us that we’re at our best when we work together

Fri, 07 Feb, 2025

Book review: ‘I looked on it as an adventure, I’d never been anywhere’
Book review: ‘I looked on it as an adventure, I’d never been anywhere’
The British National Health Service carried out a targeted recruitment process throughout Ireland for nurses which began in the 1940s

Fri, 07 Feb, 2025

Book review: A gripping, late 17th century thriller
Book review: A gripping, late 17th century thriller
Through her descriptive language, flair for supporting, relevant facts, and wonderfully rounded characters, readers will become immersed in 'The Players'

Sat, 01 Feb, 2025

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