Will Real John Banville Please Stand Up! Wexford native and Booker-prize-winner John Banville has spent his celebrated literary career exploring the slippery nature of identity and reality. Characters in Banville’s dazzling, challenging novels, such as The Untouchable or Athena, slip in and out of personas, and conceal so many secrets from friends and family (not to mention … [Read more...] about Crime Pays for John Banville
Books
From The Paper Press to the Small Screen
The ascension of Sally Rooney from promising young Irish writer to A-list entertainment mogul continues at a breathtaking pace. The latest proof? A fawning report in Vanity Fair, from the set of the much-buzzed-about TV series based on her book Normal People. The swanky magazine describes Rooney’s novel as a “complex portrait of modern love, touching on class and … [Read more...] about From The Paper Press to the Small Screen
What Are You Like? Tom O’Neill
It took 20 years of intensive research, hundreds of interviews, missed deadlines, and publishers demanding their money back, but Tom O’Neill’s CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties is worth the wait. It’s a chilling page-turner documenting the writer’s quest to find the truth behind the Manson Family murders of actress Sharon Tate and six others … [Read more...] about What Are You Like? Tom O’Neill
What Are You Like? Writer Mary Beth Keane
On swanky hotels, Gráinne O’Malley’s tailor-made pirate outfits, and her own unusual hidden talent.Mary Beth Keane’s novel, Ask Again, Yes, is a lyrical, moving tale spanning 40 years about family, love, alcoholism, and mental illness. Told with tenderness and empathy for the human condition, it is juxtaposed with just the right amount of humor to carry the story along. NPR’s … [Read more...] about What Are You Like? Writer Mary Beth Keane
Your Summer Reading List
MILKMAN Anna Burns I didn't know much about Northern Ireland before I left home in 1972. There was one shopping trip to Belfast on the train. I bought a purple and black maxi coat that looked like a woolen dressing gown. I had it for years and I can't think why I gave it away. I don't remember much about Belfast, or much else about the trip, except that on the return … [Read more...] about Your Summer Reading List