Something for the Weekend – Liz Nugent's Cultural Picks

Acclaimed novellist Liz Nugent started her career writing for broadcast. In 2006, her first short story for adults, Alice, was shortlisted for the Francis McManus Short Story Prize.

She has written four novels to date, all of them bestsellers: Unravelling Oliver (2014), Lying in Wait (2016), Skin Deep (2018) and Our Little Cruelties (2020). Skin Deep was awarded Crime Novel of the Year and RTE Radio Listener's Choice Award at the Irish Book Awards. This year, Liz was honoured by UCD’s Literary and Historical Society with the 2021 James Joyce Award in recognition of her literary accomplishments.

Liz will take part in Notes from a Quiet Land Edition II, which will be streamed live from the National Concert Hall on Sunday March 21st at 8 pm. The concert also features Ailbhe Reddy, Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi, Sorcha Richardson, Jessica Traynor, Maija Sofia, Bobbi Arlo, Aoife Martin and Sinead Gleeson, and can be watched free online - find out more here.

We asked Liz for her choice cultural picks...

FILM

If I want to escape to sunnier climes, I might rewatch The Talented Mr Ripley, not just because it is such a visually beautiful film by the late Anthony Minghella, but because it is based on one of my favourite books by Patricia Highsmith.

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FILM

I’m old school. I don’t stream music. I buy old-fashioned CDs, and the most recent one is Edel Meade’s Brigids or Patricias, which is on a heavy rotation with Emma Langford’s Sowing Acorns and Niamh Ní Charra’s trad album Donnelly’s Arm. Amazing women musicians doing amazing things.

BOOK

Again, I’m reading other cultures because I can’t travel, so I’m about to start Seven Years of Darkness, a psychological thriller by Korean writer You-Jeong Jeong.

THEATRE

Fishamble Theatre Company are screening their acclaimed site-specific production of Inside the GPO by Colin Murphy during Easter Week. I was lucky enough to see it live during the 1916 commemorations. It’s incredibly moving and I’m looking forward to seeing how it translates on to the screen.

I’m watching Your Honour at the moment, starring Bryan Cranston. I have watched all of Breaking Bad so often that I’m finding it hard to separate the character of Walter White from Michael Desiato. Lovely to see Irish actress Geraldine Hughes pop up in it too. And Hope Davis, who I saw on stage on Broadway in the olden days when we could do that sort of thing.

GIG

The last gig I was at was The Frames in Paris in 2019, courtesy of voice coach Judith Mok who also happened to be staying in Centre Culturel Irlandais. I travelled an awful lot that year with work but ended the year in hospital, so gigs were out of the question for me after that. I would like the next gig I go to to be a quiet affair- a girl and a guitar, or a piano and maybe a cello. I don’t know who yet, but I want it to be a small intimate venue. Perhaps my kitchen?

TECH

Radio Garden is my most recent app discovery. It shows you a map of the globe and you can choose a town or city anywhere in the world and listen to what their local radio station is playing in real time. Fascinating.

THE NEXT BIG THING...

The return of literary festivals. I have missed meeting readers and other writers so much! I have two pencilled in so far, but we’ll see if they actually happen. Everything crossed.

Notes from a Quiet Land Edition II will be streamed live from the National Concert Hall on Sunday March 21st at 8 pm - find out more here.

Something for the Weekend – Liz Nugent's Cultural Picks

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