‘It’s really warping, all these people who don’t know you, who feel like they do’
Meg Mason, the author of bestseller Sorrow and Bliss, returns with Sophie, Standing There, a meta novel about a lonely literary-festival worker’s parasocial relationship with a famous writer
Reds: A Global History of Communism by Paul Mason – the problem of revisionism and working-class awareness
Books in brief: The Princess of Connemara, The Judges of Ireland 1866-1921 and Alone in Japan: A Journey to the Future
The Fate of the World: A History and Future of the Climate Crisis: A sobering narrative
Sunrise by Téa Obreht: Timelines converge successfully in absorbing novel
Poem of the Week: Dublin Bus Hours Before Cork Win the Camogie Final
If This Be Magic by Daniel Hahn: The perils of translating Shakespeare
Middlemen: Literary Agents and the Making of American Fiction – elegant, ambitious and very smart
SHORT STORIES
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POETRY
The World’s Reformation: A story combining academic authority with gripping readability
By Andrew Roycroft
Bytes and Bullets: Study of AI arms race is meticulously researched and deeply disturbing
By Tom Clonan
How to Train Your Dragon author: ‘I have always liked the idea of an animal you could talk to’
By Martin Doyle
Fiction in translation: How trauma interrupts the flow of a life, to devastating effect
By Sara Baume
The Writer’s Writer: A dive into John McGahern’s literary archive shows his huge impact
By Eamon Maher
Stealing Hitler’s Rocket: Thoroughly engaging story of frantic race to smuggle out a V-2
By Andrew Lynch
Crosswords & Puzzles
Crosswords & puzzles to keep you challenged and entertained
Common Ground
How does a post-Brexit world shape the identity and relationship of these islands
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