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Book Review – Death by Truffles by Marie Anders
When Marc Bergmann, the city’s local womaniser, shows up dead on a park bench in the middle of Salzburg, the arduous task of narrowing down the long list of possible perpetrators begins. Suspects include his jilted wife Alexia, his furious in-laws who knew he was being unfaithful, Alexia’s childhood friend Jan who evidently harbours very…
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Book Review – I Want To Know That I Will Be Ok by Deirdre Sullivan
I Want to Know That I Will Be Ok (Banshee Press, 2021), Deirdre Sullivan’s first book for adults, is a collection of beautifully strange, engrossing and unsettling short stories. Her short stories have already been published in literary journals and the Irish Times, but she is perhaps best known for her award-winning books for children…
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Book Review – Nora by Nuala O’Connor
Nora: A Love Story of Nora Barnacle and James Joyce by Nuala O’Connor is a life story – the life that Nora and ‘her Jim’ shared from their ‘first time to walk out together’ on June 16th 1904 – propelled along by the deep love that they held for each other, despite the many hardships…
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Book Review – Constellations by Sinéad Gleeson
“I have come to think of all the metal in my body as artificial stars, glistening beneath the skin, a constellation of old and new metal. A map, a tracing of connections and a guide to looking at things from different angles.” Constellations: Reflections from Life (Picador, 2019) is the debut book by Sinéad Gleeson,…
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Book Review – The Magician of Lublin by Isaac Bashevis Singer
The Magician of Lublin by Isaac Bashevis Singer (1903 – 1991) was first published in English in 1960, having been translated from Yiddish. In the author’s note of my copy, Singer thanks his editors who ‘for years have encouraged me in the difficult task of introducing Yiddish writing to the American reader’. I found this…
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Book Review – Dinner Party: A Tragedy by Sarah Gilmartin
All we have is ourselves. All we have is family. Dinner Party: A Tragedy, the debut novel by journalist, author and playwright Sarah Gilmartin, is a novel which is honest with us, and warns us from the beginning that we are going to be taken on a bumpy ride. It tells the story of a…
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Interview – Write by the Sea Literary Festival 2021
The autumn festival season is kicking off all around Ireland, and if there is one festival that writers – both established and aspiring – don’t want to miss, it’s Write by the Sea. Based in the picturesque and intimate seaside village of Kilmore Quay, Co. Wexford, Write by the Sea is a festival which delves…
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Interview – Jack Smyth – Book Cover Designer
These days, you don’t even have to take a book off the shelves to enjoy the experience of being in a bookshop. Book covers have become artworks in their own rights, and browsing a well laid out bookshop isn’t unlike being at an exhibition of sorts. The show in question contains everything from bold, colourful…
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Interview – Ellen Hutchins Festival 2021
Aside from being one of the most beautiful parts of Ireland, Bantry Bay (West Cork) and surrounding area is famous for something else that, more than likely, not enough people know about – it was home to Ellen Hutchins (1785 – 1815), Ireland’s first female botanist, and a significant contributor to her particular field of…
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Book Review – A Quiet Tide by Marianne Lee
The fisherman sidled up to her on the quay. ‘You’re Miss Hutchins, the plant lady from Ballylickey.’ A Quiet Tide, the debut novel by Marianne Lee, takes us back in time to the early 1800s, immersing us in an intimate and compelling fictionalised account of the life of Ellen Hutchins, Ireland’s first female botanist. After…
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The Resting Willow 