Books | Latest News & Reviews For Bookworms

10 must-see events at Dublin Book Festival 2025

From November 5th - 9th, Dublin Book Festival returns with over 100 events taking place in venues all around Dublin City.

Festivals • 14 Oct

Why Seamus Heaney remains Ireland's greatest poet

It is little over 12 years since Ireland lost a man considered by many its greatest ever poet

Books • 10 Oct

Book Of The Week: Beat that! The Story of the Irish Bodhrán

Cork University Press has recently published Beating Time: The Story of the Irish Bodhrán by Fintan Vallely, a major new study of the instrument.

Book Of The Week • 8 hrs

Cover of the book Enchanted Ireland featuring two wolfhounds on a blue and green background.

Enchanted Ireland by Kieran Fanning - read an extract here!

Read an extract of the new book Enchanted Ireland by Kieran Fanning here.

Books • 10 hrs

RTÉjr Book Club: Diversity, inclusion and representation in books

In this RTÉjr Book Club we help find books where everyone can find themselves in the story - with thanks to Children's Books Ireland.

RTÉjr Book Club • 13 Oct

Something for the Weekend: Brendan Mac Evilly's cultural picks

Deep Burn is the debut novel from Brendan Mac Evilly; it's a frenetic tale of art and the value of obsession; fame and the price of envy; friendship and the uncertainty of love.

Something For The Weekend • 09 Oct

Cover of the book Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon

Shadow man: RTÉ Arena on the return of Thomas Pynchon

Richard Aldous reviews Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon, a crime story set in 1930s Milwaukee.

RTÉ Arena • 08 Oct

Books of Hungarian writer Laszlo Krasznahorkai on display

Hungary's Krasznahorkai wins Nobel literature prize

The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Laszlo Krasznahorkai, considered by many as Hungary's most important living author whose works explore themes of postmodern dystopia and melancholy.

Books • 09 Oct

Book Of The Week: Exploring the radical craft of memoir

Towards the end of her clearsighted and passionate exploration of the craft of memoir writing, author Lily Dunn quotes memoirists she has interviewed for the book.

Books • 06 Oct

New Heaney collection contains 25 unpublished poems

Previously unpublished poems by Seamus Heaney have been included in a new collection of his work available from today.

Poetry • 09 Oct

Seamus Heaney celebrated - an Irish poetry legend in focus

RTÉ Culture remembers a giant of Irish literature

Poetry • 06 Oct

John Banville & Neil Jordan on friendship, creativity & writing

This third episode brings together two of Ireland's most acclaimed voices — filmmaker and novelist Neil Jordan and Booker Prize-winning author John Banville — in a rare, candid conversation.

Books • 02 Oct

A woman with brown hair, wearing a black shirt smiles to the camera

Eilish Fisher: "If ghosts exist, what else could exist?"

The We Love Books Podcast is ringing in the spooky season with multi award-winning author Eilish Fisher! Listen here now and wherever you get your podcasts.

We Love Books • 01 Oct

Sunday Miscellany remembers poet Michael Hartnett

Memories of when he first became aware of 'the poet'

Sunday Miscellany • 30 Sep

Stars of the sea - the new book celebrating famous Irish mariners

Ireland has a rich history of famous – and infamous – mariners: from our earliest navigators, who may have reached North America – by currach – a thousand years before Columbus, to daring polar explorers Ernest Shackleton and Tom Crean.

Books • 22 Sep

Twilight at 20: the many afterlives of Stephenie Meyer's vampires

The book series of the same name has sold over 160 million copies, been translated into 38 languages and adapted into five blockbuster films.

Opinion and Analysis • 23 Sep

The Art of Reading: Belinda McKeon talks to Colm Tóibín

The Art of Reading is a monthly book club hosted by Colm Tóibín, the Laureate for Irish Fiction.

Culture Night 2025 • 19 Sep

Meet The Lonely Only Dinosaur: Olivia Hope's new picture book

'Writing for young children I am so aware that they experience giant firsts all the time...' Childrens' author Olivia Hope introduces her new picture book, The Lonely Only Dinosaur, illustrated by Anna Süßbauer.

Books • 24 Sep

Sally Rooney speaks onstage during the Hulu Panel at Winter TCA 2020 at The Langham Huntington, Pasadena on 17 January, 2020 in Pasadena, California

Sally Rooney: 'I can no longer safely enter the UK'

Irish author Sally Rooney has been advised she "can no longer safely enter the UK without potentially facing arrest" due to her support for the banned organisation Palestine Action.

Books • 18 Sep

Book Of The Week: New Arcana by Jessica Traynor

One of the most remarkable things about Jessica Traynor's New Arcana is how successfully it manages to evoke the expansive honesty at the heart of John Berryman's 1969 masterwork The Dream Songs.

Book Of The Week • 29 Sep

You're never too old to be a debut author

Never too late: Sylvia Leatham on publishing a debut novel in her 50s

Get Creative • 26 Sep

Queer optimism: how Ireland's LGBTQ+ youth movement was built

In his new book How Ireland's LGBTQ+ Youth Movement Was Built: Civil Society in the Pursuit of Social Justice, Dr Michael Barron traces how LGBTQ+ young people in Ireland moved from silence to celebration

History • 13 Sep

13 Ways of Looking at Ghosts by Róisín Leggett Bohan

For Culture Night 2025, Guest Editor Belinda McKeon has curated a number of works from emerging creative talents of note...

Culture Night 2025 • 19 Sep

Searching for Grandfather - a poem by by Rafael Mendes

For Culture Night 2025, Guest Editor Belinda McKeon has curated a number of works from emerging creative talents

Culture Night 2025 • 19 Sep

Wild things - tales of loss and rebirth from Irish nature

Conor W. O'Brien's new book The Living and The Dead - Tales of Loss and Rebirth from Irish Natu

Nature • 16 Sep