Tag: book discussion
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Book Review – A Crooked Tree by Una Mannion
When 12-year-old Ellen Gallagher and her mother get into a heated argument on the drive home one night, along a dark and desolate road, a snap decision made by the mother is to have consequences that will reverberate, through their own family and their little community, for the rest of that summer. A Crooked Tree…
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Book Review – The Last Resort by Jan Carson
The Last Resort is a collection of ten linked short stories by Jan Carson, each focusing on the existential plight of one of the residents staying at Seacliff Caravan Park. Far from the idyllic sun and laughter filled caravan parks of happy childhood summers, Seacliff is huddled at the edge of a remote, blustery cliff…
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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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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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Book Review – Pure Gold by John Patrick McHugh
That summer we lit fires. Terry and I. (Bonfire) Although already a seasoned writer of short stories featured in literary journals and magazines, Pure Gold is John Patrick McHugh’s first published collection. The stories are all set on an imagined island off the west coast of Ireland. Referred to as ‘the Island’ throughout, this already…
The Resting Willow 