Following on from the publication of her recent novel The Raptures, she returns with a new collection of short stories called Quickly, While They Still Have Horses. The collection is an exploration of all aspects of life, from childhood to middle-age, grief to falling in love, parenthood to loss, all told with Carson’s trademark empathy, humour and striking imagination. In these sixteen stories, Carson introduces us to worlds and characters that feel real and recognisable. Her characters are in the midst of losing faith, either in themselves or in other people and are facing up to the daily di ..read more

April has been a month of ongoing sickness (nothing serious) and blogging has taken a bit of a back seat for me. I’m trying to get back into the swing of things with some mini reviews of three contemporary Irish novels that I’ve read over the last few weeks. Version 1.0.0Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan I didn’t really get on with Megan Nolan’s debut Acts of Desperation but had high hopes for her follow-up. Ordinary Human Failings, which was longlisted for the Women’s Prize but not shortlisted, is set mostly in the 1990s and tells the story of the Greens, a family of Irish immigrants who ..read more

Well, it’s fair to say that Reading Ireland Month 2024 is going out with a whimper rather than a bang. I have been quite sick since around the first week of March and am still on the wrong side of well. I always under estimate the work it takes to host a challenge month, so have been unable to keep up with my Facebook page, Instagram, Twitter or reviewing. I have four books waiting for review, but just don’t have the energy or mental capacity to write anything at the moment. With just one day of the month to go, it looks like I’ll be extending my Irish reading on into April to catch up. If yo ..read more

Novels by two Irish authors have been shortlisted for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award. Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry and Haven by Emma Donoghue were among the final six announced. The other shortlisted titles are: Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu, translated by Sean Cotter If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright True to form when it comes to recent Awards shortlists, I haven’t read any of these! Worth €100,000, the Dublin Literary Award is the largest award for a single novel published in English. If the winning book has ..read more

Time After Time is the portrait of a family already ruined, living in an Irish ‘big house’ whose chaos and decay affects not only the building, but its inhabitants. Each of the aging Swift siblings who live in the house–Jasper and his sisters April, May, and Baby June–is in some way debilitated. Jasper only has one eye; the other having been shot out by Baby June in a childhood accident. April is deaf, an affliction of which she takes great advantage. May has a badly deformed hand and Baby June is dyslexic to the point of illiteracy. The Swifts are trapped into living together through mutual d ..read more

When John Banville first took to crime-writing via his alter-ego Benjamin Black, it was considered a surprise. He had recently won the Booker Prize for The Sea, annoying much of the literary world by thanking them for finally giving the prize to a work of art, so the idea of one of the greatest literary stylists turning his hand to genre-writing was relatively unexpected. It could be said that he initially dipped his toe into crime with his masterful novel The Book of Evidence, which played tantalisingly with elements of the period thriller as well as true crime. With Christine Falls, he show ..read more

John Boyne’s This House is Haunted is one of those books that does exactly what it says on the tin and is quite enjoyable in a vaguely forgettable way. Owing quite a debt to The Turn of the Screw – with a pinch of Jane Eyre, a dollop of Dickens and a smattering of Rebecca for good measure – Boyne offers up a solid Gothic ghost story. Following the sudden death of her father, plain Eliza Caine answers an advert to act as governess of two children in Gaudlin Hall in Norfolk. With no other options available, she takes the job, only to experience two children with no responsible adults around and ..read more

It’s hard to believe that we are already halfway through Reading Ireland Month 2024! A horrendous cough and chest infection have meant that I am falling behind slightly on posts, but I’m hoping to pick things up again next week with a few reviews and a post for Dewithon ’24. Support for this years Reading Ireland Month has been great so far, with almost 50 posts since we kicked off a few weeks ago. Thanks to everyone who has joined in. You can see links to all the reviews on my pinned post here, and if your post hasn’t been included, please do let me know in the comments. it’s been a great we ..read more

Cathy Sweeney’s debut novel, which follows on from her well-received short story collection Modern Times, tells the story of a breakdown as an unnamed middle-aged narrator leaves her husband and two children asleep in their suburban Dublin home on a seeming whim. Her unplanned departure from her comfortable life takes her on a drive through Ireland, via her hometown, to Rosslare, where she catches a ferry to Wales. As she details her journey, she muses on the events, aspirations and disappointments which have brought her to this point, where her relationships and societies expectations of her ..read more

Mary Costello is one of the finest modern practitioners of the short story. Barcelona is characterised by poignant stories filled with quiet desperation, powerful yearning and moments of epiphany. There are stories about doomed relationships, make-do relationships, fleeting relationships and one-sided relationships, where couples are detached or off-kilter, never quite on the same page. The collection explores themes of grief, loneliness, cruelty and misunderstanding, but is always leavened with a sense of hope and possibility, reflecting on the worst, and often the best of the human conditio ..read more