Culture | Books, Music, Theatre, Film & The Arts

Reviewed: Modern Times by Cathy Sweeney

Bite-size and bittersweet, Cathey Sweeney writes miniscule short stories that are reminiscent of Beckett and Blindboy, writes Ellen McGrath, reviewing a sparkling debut collection.

Books • 06 Apr 20

Reviewed: A Thousand Moons by Sebastian Barry

Eileen Dunne reviews the eagerly-anticipated new novel from the Laureate for Irish Fiction...

Books • 23 Mar 20

Robert Glück: a radical rearrangement of a holy woman's story

Reviewed: Margery Kempe by Robert Glück

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1947, Robert Glück, essayist, novelist and short story writer pioneered New Narrative with Bruce Boone in San Francisco. First published in 1994, his novel Margery Kempe is a fine example of the genre.

Books • 13 Mar 20

Patricia Scanlan's new novel charts the history of the Irish Women's Liberation Movement (Pic: Ger Holland)

Review: Patricia Scanlan's Liberation of Brigid Dunne

The story of the Irish Women's Liberation Movement and the impact it had on an evolving Ireland was one that has been waiting to be written, and Patricia Scanlan has done it with style.

Books • 11 Mar 20

Reviewed: These Silent Mansions by Jean Sprackland

Jean Sprackland, a poet who has enjoyed previous success in prose with Strand: A Year of Discoveries on the Beach is it would be fair to say, addicted to graveyards in her engaging new work.

Books • 09 Mar 20

Chipper and compelling: Michelle Gallen's cooks up an Ulster Fry in Big Girl Small Town

Reviewed: Big Girl Small Town by Michelle Gallen

Tyrone-born Michelle Gallen's debut novel brings us Majella O'Neill who works in the local chipper in a fictional small town in Northern Ireland who is not keen on most Other People with their nosy gossip-mongering and malice.

Books • 04 Mar 20

Irish novelist Sinead Moriarty - her fourteenth novel is an emotional roller-coaster

Reviewed: Seven Letters by Sinead Moriarty

Just out in paperback, Seven Letters is an agonizingly gripping read, a heartbreaking tale of the loss of hope, writes Orlagh Doherty.

Books • 03 Mar 20

The Quarry: stories from a functional-dysfunctional estate told in linked stories

Reviewed: The Quarry by Ben Halls

Unable to do much more than protest at the meagre quality of their lives, Ben Halls's characters boldly rattle the bars of urban entrapment in wonderful stories, most of which are set in the eponymous council estate near London.

Books • 27 Feb 20

Gerard Smyth: his tenth collection of poetry resonates with loving images from his Dublin heartland

Reviewed: The Sundays of Eternity by Gerard Smyth

Gerard Smyth works quiet miracles in the numinous, tender poems abounding in his tenth collection, poems which celebrate his Dublin heartland, venturing out too to Cork, Sligo and Portugal and elsewhere, with verses for friends, living still or passed.

Poetry • 26 Feb 20

Thomas Piketty: his capacious 1,104-page tome even references the Land Acts implemented in late nineteenth century Ireland

Reviewed: Capital and Ideology by Thomas Piketty

French economist Thomas Piketty's 2013 book Capital in the Twenty First Century became an unlikely bestseller. Now he returns to the table of popular but eruditely framed thinking - a fine line - with his new work, which runs to over 1,000 pages.

Books • 25 Feb 20

Reviewed: This is How We Dance by David Diebold

A whirlwind of emotions based on life, love and loss, evoked in 52 personal stories affords a wonderful insight into unforgettable moments in the author's life.

Books • 24 Feb 20

Colum McCann: a poignant story from the Middle East

Reviewed: Apeirogon by Colum McCann

Apeirogon is a beautifully written novel set in the West Bank, in the heat of the Israeli and Palestinian conflict and explores the poignant impact of love, loss, war, hatred, reconciliation and forgiveness.

Books • 25 Feb 20

In the debut novel from journalist Malachi O'Doherty, the past catches up on Provisional IRA member Terry Brankin

Reviewed: Terry Brankin Has a Gun by Malachi O'Doherty

In his debut novel Malachi O'Doherty seeks to make a broader point here about legacy (Northern) Troubles issues - whatever happens to Brankin and his gun, it won't be the end of the violence.

Books • 18 Feb 20

Dried goods vendor, Pakistan. Rosita Boland had some nerve-wracking experiences in the mountains.

Reviewed: Elsewhere by Rosita Boland

Vividly written, wryly humorous and most of all honest, Elsewhere is a tonic of a travel book from journalist Rosita Boland, now out in paperback.

Books • 24 Feb 20

Reviewed: Actress by Anne Enright

Actress is the tale of the complex relationship shared between the protagonist Norah and her Hollywood actress mother Katherine O'Dell in post war 1940s Hollywood.

Books • 15 Feb 20

Alison Light and her husband Raphael on their wedding day in 1987

Reviewed: A Radical Romance by Alison Light

Alison Light's revealing memoir details in its last third the sense of acute desolation the writer and critic felt following the death of her husband, the Communist historian Raphael Samuel, who died in 1997, aged 62.

Books • 17 Feb 20

Book review: Strange Hotel by Eimear McBride

Strange Hotel explores loss, love and the nature of home through the intimate rendering of a woman's mind laid bare in a series of hotel rooms scattered around the globe.

Culture • 13 Feb 20

Novelist Gill Hornby: embroidering the Austen family tapestry with the portrait of an influential sister

Reviewed: Miss Austen by Gill Hornby

They say you should never judge a book by its cover, but let's face it, most of us do at some stage, and by that criteria, Miss Austen is a winner from the get go.

Books • 05 Feb 20

Marian Keyes: what happens when the air kissing ends

Reviewed: Grown Ups by Marian Keyes

The Caseys don't really have perfect lives, and Marian Keyes' latest novel explores just what happens when the air kissing ends and stuff hits the fan.

Books • 04 Feb 20

Reviewed: The Island Girl by Molly Aitken

Oona gets away from the island physically but escaping the psychic, spiritual effect of her homeplace, bound up as it is with dark secrets, is not easy in Molly Aitken's brooding tale.

Books • 30 Jan 20

Deirdre Bair: the American biographer knew Samuel Beckett and Simone de Beauvoir and wrote acclaimed biographies of both.

Reviewed: Parisian Lives by Deirdre Bair

American academic Deirdre Bair won global acclaim for her biographies of the writers Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) and Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986). In this memoir she recalls those heady years in Paris as she charted the lives her illustrious subjects.

Books • 31 Jan 20

Gerry Murphy: flair for the humour instinct

Reviewed: The Humours of Nothingness by Gerry Murphy

In his latest collection, Cork poet Gerry Murphy is moving in surreal regalia through the fair of poetry, sardonic and mischievous, colourful and catch-all in the best sense.

Books • 01 Feb 20

Rob Doyle: is it a bird or a plane or pieces of fiction or what?

Reviewed: Threshold by Rob Doyle

Béibhinn Breathnach recommends Rob Doyle's latest work, Threshold, as an ideal read for anyone who has ever felt they were not living, but merely floating along.

Books • 24 Jan 20

The late journalist and memoirist Deborah Orr (pic Felicity McCabe)

Reviewed: Motherwell - A Girlhood by Deborah Orr

Deborah Orr's posthumously published memoir is an illumination picture of a Scottish childhood