Article Category: Books

CONNECT – JULIAN GOUGH (PICADOR)

May 31, 2018

TIPPERARY AUTHOR Julian Gough (now Berlin-based) has already produced three comic novels and a series of children’s stories. He also wrote the ‘ending’... Read more »

HEARTLAND – PATRICK McCABE (NEW ISLAND)

May 17, 2018

SINCE THE success of The Butcher Boy in 1992, Patrick McCabe has pioneered a distinctive literary genre. His claustrophobic narratives – usually about... Read more »

SILENCE UNDER A STONE – NORMA MacMASTER (DOUBLEDAY IRELAND)

May 3, 2018

SET MOSTLY in the early 20th century in a remote and introspective Co Cavan, this slow-paced story centres on Harriet Campbell whose unfulfilled... Read more »

FROM A LOW AND QUIET SEA – DONAL RYAN (DOUBLEDAY)

April 19, 2018

DONAL RYAN’S novels have focused to date on damaged and distracted characters experiencing lives of quiet misery. Ryan’s latest book echoes both The... Read more »

ALMOST LOVE – LOUISE O’NEILL (RIVERRUN)

April 5, 2018

FOLLOWING THE success of her two Young Adult novels, Only Ever Yours and the hugely hyped Asking For It, Co Cork writer Louise... Read more »

THE HOARDER – JESS KIDD (CANONGATE)

March 22, 2018

THE LONDON-based Irish author Jess Kidd published her well-received first novel, Himself, in 2016. Her follow-up is narrated by Mayo-born Maud Drennan, who... Read more »

RESTLESS SOULS – DAN SHEEHAN (WEIDENFELD & NICOLSON)

March 8, 2018

SET IN the 1990s, this ambitious debut novel focuses on the close friendship between three Dubliners in their mid-20s. When Tom Dempsey returns... Read more »

IN WHITE INK – ELSKE RAHILL (APOLLO LILLIPUT)

February 22, 2018

THIS COLLECTION of 11 short stories follows Elske Rahill’s 2013 debut novel Between Dog and Wold. The French-based Irish writer specialises in exploring... Read more »

THE EARLIE KING & THE KID IN YELLOW – DANNY DENTON (GRANTA)

February 8, 2018

LITERARY dystopias have become commonplace in recent times. But what distinguishes this ambitious debut novel is Denton’s anarchic language – a propulsive blend... Read more »

BLOOD TIDE – CLAIRE McGOWAN (HEADLINE)

January 25, 2018

THIS IS the fifth book in Claire McGowan’s “Ulster noir” series which sees Northern Irish forensic psychologist Paula Maguire investigating the disappearance of... Read more »

MRS OSMOND -JOHN BANVILLE (VIKING)

January 11, 2018

IN HIS latest novel, John Banville picks up where Henry James left off at the close of The Portrait of a Lady (1881).... Read more »

HERE AND GONE – HAYLEN BECK (HARVILL SECKER)

January 11, 2018

HAYLEN BECK is the pen name of Northern Irish crime writer Stuart Neville, who has been capturing the mean streets of Belfast in... Read more »

OH MY GOD WHAT A COMPLETE AISLING – SARAH BREEN / EMER MCLYSAGHT

December 14, 2017

THE NOVEL Oh My God What A Complete Aisling began life as a Facebook page detailing the travails of the typical country girl... Read more »

he: A NOVEL – JOHN CONNOLLY (HODDER & STOUGHTON)

November 30, 2017

THE “he” of John Connolly’s title is Arthur Stanley Jefferson, born in Lancashire and who went on to become the thin part of... Read more »

FUNNY BUSINESS – ALAN SHATTER (POOLBEG)

November 30, 2017

IT’S EASY to mock Alan Shatter and it’s very hard to like him. This book could well be regarded as his effort to... Read more »

THE WARRIOR’S CODE – JACKIE TYRRELL  (TRINITY MIRROR)

November 2, 2017

JACKIE TYRRELL is selfish. That’s not Goldhawk’s assessment, it’s Tyrrell’s own. On no fewer than 12 occasions in his new autobiography does he... Read more »

Roddy Doyle’s ‘Smile’

November 2, 2017

THROUGHOUT his successful writing career, Roddy Doyle has been associated mostly with candid depictions of Irish family life, energetic prose and vernacular dialogue.... Read more »

MIDWINTER BREAK – BERNARD MacLAVERTY (JONATHAN CAPE)

October 5, 2017

KNOWN MAINLY for his skillfully crafted short stories, Bernard MacLaverty’s first novel since 2001 takes place over four days of sightseeing in a... Read more »

GERRY ADAMS: AN UNAUTHORISED LIFE – MALACHI O’DOHERTY (FABER AND FABER)

September 21, 2017

LIKE him or loath him – as Malachi O’Doherty repeatedly intones – Gerry Adams is a colossus in modern Irish politics. He steered... Read more »

THIS FAMILY OF THINGS – ALISON JAMESON (DOUBLEDAY IRELAND)

September 21, 2017

SET IN Ireland and America, the story revolves around the Keegan family, a brother and two sisters who are landowners in a remote... Read more »

MARRIED QUARTERS – SHANE CONNAUGHTON (DOUBLEDAY IRELAND)

September 7, 2017

SET IN the fictional border town of Butlershill, this sequel to Connaughton’s 1989 short story collection, A Border Station, offers a revealing portrait... Read more »

Love in Row 27

August 24, 2017

Eithne Shorthall – (Corvus) THIS DEBUT novel by the arts correspondent with the Sunday Times centres around Cora Hendricks, a Heathrow check-in attendant... Read more »

SOLAR BONES – MIKE McCORMACK (CANONGATE)

August 10, 2017

LONGLISTED LAST month for the 2017 Man Booker Prize (along with Sebastian Barry’s Days Without End), Mike McCormack’s experimental novel tells the story... Read more »

THE BLOOD MIRACLES – LISA McINERNEY (JOHN MURRAY)

July 27, 2017

THE FOLLOW-UP to Lisa McInerney’s award-winning 2015 debut, The Glorious Heresies, returns to the adventurous life of Ryan Cusack. The 20-year-old “mid-ladder dealer”... Read more »

CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS – SALLY ROONEY (FABER & FABER)

July 13, 2017

DEBUT NOVELIST Sally Rooney creates a portrait of modern young women in this slow-moving tale centring around two university students, Frances and Bobbi,... Read more »

HOUSE OF NAMES – COLM TÓIBÍN (VIKING)

June 15, 2017

IN HIS successful 2012 novel, The Testament of Mary, Colm Tóibín imagined the mother of Jesus struggling to accept her son’s divinity. The... Read more »

SKINTOWN – CIARÁN McMENAMIN (DOUBLEDAY)

June 2, 2017

THIS DEBUT novel touches on well-trodden aspects of yoof culture, with themes of male friendship and the prospect of redemption running the length... Read more »

ITHACA – ALAN McMONAGLE (PICADOR)

June 2, 2017

THE DEBUT novel from Galway-based Alan McMonagle is set in the summer of 2019 in an unnamed Irish Midlands town “miles from anywhere,... Read more »

THE FRACTURED LIFE OF JIMMY DICE – RONAN RYAN (TINDER PRESS)

May 17, 2017

CLONMEL-BORN Ronan Ryan’s debut novel joins the already saturated field of coming-of-age fiction published over recent years. Ryan’s story begins in 1980 and... Read more »

A LINE MADE BY WALKING – SARA BAUME (HEINEMANN)

May 3, 2017

SINCE HER widely acclaimed 2015 debut, Spill Simmer Falter Wither, expectations have been high for Sara Baume’s second novel. In her follow-up, the... Read more »

THE PONZI MAN – DECLAN LYNCH (HACHETTE)

April 19, 2017

DURING THE latter stages of the delirium known as the Celtic Tiger, Irish high society became the land of the pyramids – or... Read more »

CARNIVALESQUE – NEIL JORDAN (BLOOMSBURY CIRCUS)

April 5, 2017

IN BOTH his fiction and films, Neil Jordan has frequently been drawn into dream worlds of ghosts and tangled fairytale horror. This latest... Read more »

THE HEART’S INVISIBLE FURIES – JOHN BOYNE (DOUBLEDAY)

March 23, 2017

THE BESTSELLING author of The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas returns to familiar themes of flawed and forbidden relationships in his latest novel.... Read more »

ABOUT BEING NORMAL – DES FENNELL (SOMERVILLE)

March 9, 2017

“THE ‘ECONOMIC foundation of independence’ cannot be built in a context of decreasing independence … It can be built … only in an... Read more »