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 and the latest episode features Colm in conversation with Nicole Flattery about her debut novel, Nothing Special - watch above.
Speaking about the book, Tóibín said: "Nothing Special is set at a very particular New York moment. It is 1966. Mae, the protagonist, lands a job as typist for the artist Andy Warhol who is embarking on an unconventional novel by taping the conversations of his associates and friend. Mae moves on the edges of Warhol’s world, attending the counterculture parties. The novel dramatizes her coming-of-age in Warhol’s New York."
Nicole Flattery’s story collection Show Them A Good Time was published by The Stinging Fly in Ireland and Bloomsbury in the UK in 2019. Nothing Special is her first novel. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, the London Review of Books and Sight & Sound magazine.
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.
