The Art of Reading is a monthly book club hosted by Colm Tóibín, the Laureate for Irish Fiction.
Each month, the Laureate meets a different library book club to discuss a book by an Irish writer, highlighting outstanding Irish writing and celebrating the reader and book clubs.
The selected titles celebrate new work by contemporary Irish writers, but previous episodes have also highlighted work from the past that the Laureate wishes to bring to a new generation of readers.
The latest episode features Colm in conversation with Louise Kennedy about her debut novel, Trespasses.
Speaking about the book, Tóibín said: "The unforgettable protagonist of Louise Kennedy’s Trespasses is 24-year-old Cushla Lavery, a Catholic schoolteacher living in 1975 in a small town outside Belfast. The novel narrates the story of her love affair with an older, married, Protestant barrister with the same wit and eye for detail as are on display in her book of stories The End of the World is a Cul de Sac."
Louise Kennedy grew up in Holywood, Co. Down. Her short story collection, The End of the World is a Cul de Sac (Bloomsbury 2021) won the John McGahern Prize. Her debut novel, Trespasses (Bloomsbury 2022) won Eason’s Novel of the Year at An Post Irish Book Awards, and was shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize and the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize. Before she started writing, she spent nearly thirty years working as a chef. She lives in Sligo.
The Art of Reading Book Club is an initiative of the Arts Council and the Laureate for Irish Fiction, in partnership with Libraries Ireland. Find out more here.
