Books

Book Reviews • Fighting Words

Paul Lynch wins Booker Prize for Prophet Song

By Martin Doyle

Provincial news photography raised to the level of fine art

By Keith Duggan

The Material for Victory: Grassroots memoir of 19th-century democratic political practice behind Irish land ownership

By Niamh Reilly

PJ Gallagher: Mental illness is the most articulate liar you will ever live with in your life

By Martin Doyle

Crime fiction: Running the rule over docs, cops and villains

By Declan Burke

Books that should be on your reading list

Gavin Esler on British politics: ‘We’ve got a lot of fairly rotten people in parliament’

By Mark Hennessy

Jan Carson’s year of focused reading: A voyage around Toni Morrison and Kurt Vonnegut

By Jan Carson

Michael Healy 1873-1941 and The Illuminated Window: illuminating the divine

By Gemma Tipton

The Glutton by AK Blakemore: A delicious novel on hunger and survival

By Aimée Walsh

Playing Games by Huma Qureshi: A philosophical debate about the line between real life and fiction

Poem of the week by David Nash

By David Nash

Disobedient Bodies by Emma Dabiri: A polemic that offers liberating solutions

By Anna Carey

Death Valley by Melissa Broder: A surrealistic tale of survival

By Lucie Shelly

The Politics of Time by Guy Standing: An indictment of our prevailing ‘jobs fetish’ as anything but progressive

By Niamh Jiménez

Irish Writers for Palestine event switches to Vicar St; An Post Irish Book of the Year 2023 shortlist

By Martin Doyle

Three Hundred Thousand Kisses: Queer love in the ancient world

By Declan Ryan

Dublin Tales combines scholarly quality with tourist appeal

By Catherine Toal

Karma by Boy George: A by-the-numbers celebrity tale

By Kate Demolder

Paul Murray wins Novel of the Year for The Bee Sting at the An Post Irish Book Awards

By Deirdre Falvey

Terry Hayes: ‘In Hollywood meetings, the dumbest idea tends to get the most currency because everybody can understand it’

By Henrietta McKervey

Topographia Hibernica by Blindboy Boatclub: Short stories that fail to play to the author’s obvious strengths

By NJ McGarrigle

Friends pay tribute on death of poet Eddie Linden at 88

By Martin Doyle

Irish authors dominate Nero adult fiction awards

By Martin Doyle

A Deep Well of Want. Visualising the World of John McGahern: a Leitrim love song

By Barry Houlihan

A Fabulous Failure: the Clinton presidency and how it transformed US capitalism

By Keith Duggan

The Dunlop dynasty’s triumphs and tragedies: ‘A vortex of speed and noise and colour’

By Freya McClements

Grit and ghosts: November’s best YA picks

By Claire Hennessy

Marie Cassidy: ‘It’s the man in your bed you should be worried about, not the man under your bed’

By Fiona Gartland

Roy Foster: Irish reunification ‘is nearer than I would have thought it a couple of decades ago’

By Martin Doyle

1

BP Fallon on his photo of Shane MacGowan and Sinéad O’Connor ‘having a vibe’ in 1988

2

Shane MacGowan obituary: Outsider who became one of Ireland’s most feted sons

3

The property I was due to inherit was sold. Where does that leave me?

4

Ireland has lost ‘one of music’s greatest lyricists’: Tributes paid to Shane MacGowan

5

Weather: Snow showers and ice forecast across Ireland as yellow warning issued for entire country