Books

Too Close to Breathe by Olivia Kiernan is this week’s Irish Times book offer at Eason

A sneak preview of Saturday’s books pages and a round-up of the latest literary news

Martin Doyle's face
Martin Doyle
Thu Feb 7 2019 - 16:27

Too Close to Breathe by Olivia Kiernan is this week’s Irish Times book offer at Eason. If you buy the paper at any branch this weekend, you can save €4 on the usual price of the bestselling thriller.

Congratulations to Arnold J Fanning, whose memoir, Mind on Fire, has been longlisted for the £30,000 Wellcome Book Prize. After the success of It’s All in the Head by Suzanne O’Sullivan in 2016 and To Be A Machine by Mark O’Connell last year, could this be the third Irish winner in four years?

Well done too to Eva Woods, from Newry, Co Down, whose The Lives We Touch has been shortlisted for The Goldsboro Books Contemporary Romantic Novel Award in the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s 2019 Romantic Novel Awards.

The Irish Writers Centre has announced the Marian Keyes Young Writer Award, sponsored by IWC ambassador Marian Keyes, worth €500 each to two young writers. The deadline is February 18th. Details here.

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Children’s Books Ireland has announced broadcaster Rick O’Shea as the Shadowing Champion of the CBI Book of the Year Awards 2019. Rick O’Shea has hosted the CBI Book of the Year Awards for the past three years and has long been a supporter of Irish authors and illustrators. In his new role as CBI Shadowing Champion, he will help Children’s Books Ireland to recruit its largest ever shadowing community of children and young people who will read and judge the shortlisted titles.

HarperCollins has announced that Patricia McVeigh, currently publicity director, Penguin Random House Ireland, will become its new publicity director in Ireland in April, replacing Mary Byrne who is leaving the company for a move to Italy. Highlights of this Saturday’s books pages include Tracey Thorn talking to Shilpa Ganatra about her new memoir, Another Planet: A Teenager in Suburbia, and a survey by Deirdre Falvey of the best new books being brought out this year by British and Irish small and independent pulbishers.

Reviews include Sarah Gilmartin on You Know You Want This by Kristen Roupenian of Cat Person fame; Tony Connelly on A Short History of Brexit by Kevin O’Rourke; Paul D’Alton on Seven Signs of Life by Aoife Abbey; John Self on Where Reasons End by Yiyun Li; Declan Burke on The Wolf and the Watchman by Niklas Natt och Dag; Peter Murphy on There will be no miracles here by Casey Gerald and Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds by David Goggins; Andrew Gallix on Tracey Thorn’s memoir; Eoin Ó Broin on New Faces of Fascism by Enzo Traverso; Michael Cronin on Hesse: The Wanderer and his Shadow by Gunnar Decker, translated by Peter Lewis; Ellen Jones on Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin, Translated by Megan McDowell; Martina Evans on new poetry collections by Jessica Traynor, Maureen Boyle and Patrick Kehoe; and Rob Doyle on A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf.