Review. A Normal Family by Henry Norman & Angela Pell
There have been many books about autism published over the years – heartrending accounts of the struggles – the fights for services – and occasionally tales of triumph over adversity – but A Normal Family is […]
Charlie Hart
Living in London, Charlie Hart was near breaking point. He’d started various businesses but had given up on them the moment they showed signs of being successful. Deep in grief, after the death of the father […]
Donal Ryan
Donal Ryan has absolutely no ambitions. Having studied as an engineer, then a lawyer, he became a civil servant. Happy in his job for twenty years, he only sought promotion twice, gaining it, and moving up […]
Denyse Woods
Cork writer, Denyse Woods, arrives for our Dublin meeting wearing black – her exotic jewellery reflecting her passion for the Arab world. She’s travelled there extensively and, listening, over the years, to stories of the Jinn […]
Books Ireland Debut Roundup, May 2018
The Ruin Dervla McTiernan. Sphere. Garda Cormac Reilly feels stuck. Thirty years into a promising career, he leaves his job in the Special Detective Unit’s anti-terrorist division in Dublin, and follows his scientist wife, Emma, to […]
Catherine Ryan Howard
The day Catherine Ryan Howard signed her first ever book deal started well. Rising at four, she flew to London, and celebrated with her new publishers over several glasses of champagne. She was in seventh heaven. […]
Mark O’Connell
The Irish journalist, Mark O’Connell, has been shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize – which is worth a whopping £30,000. Awarded for a book that engages with medicine, his debut, To Be a Machine, has already […]
Beau Donnelly
In March 2015, Beau Donnelly, a young reporter with the Melbourne based newspaper, The Age, got a scoop. Friends of a wellness guru, Belle Gibson, told him they believed that the young woman was a fraud. […]
Louise O’Neill
When I first met the novelist Louise O’Neill in 2014, she had just released Only Ever Yours, her dystopian YA debut, and was reading in the Bantry Bookshop. Attending, I was impressed with her charm and […]
Debut Roundup for March
Restless Souls by Dan Sheehan. Orion. When I’m sent a debut that’s been garlanded with advance praise, I tend to be a tad nervous; and when the book’s protagonists are young men who have lost their […]
Dan Sheehan
Dan Sheehan’s mother wanted her four children to study for an employable job; instead they chose the arts, with Dan’s youngest brother following him into a career in writing. This was, perhaps, inevitable. “There’s weren’t writers […]
Peter Caray
The opening section of Peter Carey’s latest novel is pitch perfect. Within the first four paragraphs, he encapsulates the delightfully unconventional characteristics of all but one of the main characters. It’s a masterclass, and what follows […]