Book Show Preview: Jon McGregor's new novel Lean Fall Stand is a standout of 2021 already. It is his fifth novel but the inspiration for it can be traced back to a trip he took as part of a writers and artists programme run by the British Antarctic Survey some 17 years ago. His chat with Book Show host Rick O'Shea takes us from the vast, imposing and relatively featureless landscape of Antarctica to his vitual Lockdown book tour of Britain conducted via the medium of Twitter.
Book lover and presenter of the Inside Books podcast, Breda Brown investigates the significant growth in northern crime writing over the past few years. It has grown in tandem with a wider upsurge in Irish crime fiction but these stories have their own particular accent, location and shadow of a darker past.
Catriona Ward's The Last House on Needless Street comes highly recommended. Before its publication in March, Stephen King tweeted "Haven't read anything this exciting since Gone Girl". Now there’s a quote for the cover. High praise, but nothing compared to being quizzed by the ‘Reading Between the Wines Book Club’ from Newcastle, Co Wicklow.
The Book Show, RTÉ Radio 1, Sundays at 7 pm - catch up with previous episodes here.
