Shapechangers: Essays from Irish women quietly challenging how literary history is written
The anthology is a radical account of how Irish literature, and Ireland itself, was changed
Book Reviews
Nightjar by Emily Ruskovich: Borderline psychotic in its trippy mystery
Ruskovich grapples with truth, memory, love, loneliness, grief and the fragility of long-held beliefs
The History of the World in 12 Soccer Matches: Players become spectators of the social upheavals surrounding them
Stefano Bizzotto adds emotional heft to tales previously told with judicious selections of archival writings and interviews
What If Reform Wins by Peter Chappell: an enjoyable but horrifying read
The author, a London Times reporter, imagines a chilling future for the UK under a Farage premiership
Crime fiction: Asteroids, serial killers and a Hitchcock flight of fantasy
There is plenty of gore and retribution in new works by Joanna Wallace, K T Nguyen, Robert J Harris, Thao Thai and Akane Araki
New books for August – Alan Opts Out, Small Town Girls: A Writer’s Memoir and Four Terrible Parents
Three great reads from Courtney Maum, Jayne Anne Phillips and Calla Henkel
Fed Up by Daniel Lieberman: Exploring fad diets claiming to solve the riddle of the human body
Lieberman points out that losing weight is not simply the opposite process of gaining weight
White Elephant: A big novel with big questions
Jeyamohan’s humanist story depicts how imperial wealth depended on invisible suffering during the British Raj
The Broken King by Michael Thomas: An artfully relentless memoir
Thomas seeks to repair the broken king rather than to unking the broken world
The Anniversary review: Andrea Bajani’s haunting novel of family estrangement
Italian author’s Premio Strega winner examines what it means to leave parents behind
Crosbhealach an Cheoil: Crucial Irish traditional music conference revisited
Thirty years on, what is clear from The Crossroads Conference 1996 is how important the occasion was
We Are Not Machines; Users; The Nerd Reich: New books examine the wreckage caused by big tech
‘We can have billionaires or we can have democracy. We cannot have both,’ writes Gil Durán in his stunning new work
Inequality, The View from Manywheres: Populist leaders promise a wonderland that does not exist
Societal reactions don’t always arrive when you expect them to
Solace House: Unsettling, ambitious novel that blends Gothic unease with cosmic horror
There are faint echoes of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History but Will Maclean expands his book into stranger territory
Kitten by Stacey Yu: Strange, vibrant and genuinely idiosyncratic novel
Buy this for the cat-obsessed youth in your life immediately
The Quickening by Claire McGowan: A powerful novel of motherhood, cowardice and courage
A howl of rage against the denial of freedoms, and a call for resistance
Flirting with Evil – The Catholic Church in the Age of Total War and Globalisation: A sprawling but intelligent history
Book is essentially a 400-page charge sheet of blunders and scandals that resulted from identity crisis in organisation
Séamas O’Reilly on best graphic novels of 2026 so far
Dogs on Dates, by Luke Healy; The Woodchipper, by Joe Ollman; Fault Lines, by Rob Cullen; Dear Historian, by Joff Winterheart; and Children of Light, by Jean Pleyers
Clara and Christina by Andrew Cunning: Questioning the nature of contemporary fiction
Daring debut novel explores themes around publishing, identity and bland writing trends
A trivial comedy for serious YA readers, and more summer page-turners for teens
Prolific author Elle Kennedy has published her first YA novel, Thornbird, a satisfyingly twisty and swoony mystery tale
Marilyn Monroe: a life of endless mystery and metamorphosis in books
As a foster kid who became a princess, the screen siren who would now be 100 is the embodiment of the American dream
Jan Morris – A Life by Sara Wheeler: Biography races through writer’s contradictory 94 years
Rather than tackle all of Morris’s books, author summarises just one-third of total collection
A Chorus of Ears by Denise Riley: Enjoy the company of an egregiously intelligent companion
Riley is one of our clearest thinkers
Proust by Samuel Beckett: A fascinating glimpse of a Nobel laureate ‘in the making’
Beckett’s youthful study illuminates the intellectual development of one of Ireland’s most formidable literary talents
Religion in Irish Literature and Culture: Original and thought-provoking essays
Timely collection covers a range of topics from gothic fiction to poetry and women of the diaspora
The Poems of Sylvia Plath review: Leaping virtuoso from the page, clear as a bell
Authors tactfully focus on Plath’s vital hard-won poems, while their introduction affirms how she ‘taught readers to love poetry’
Reviews in brief: Cold War Football, The Albany Trilogy and Five Noir Novels of the 1950s & 60s
New books by Tony Shaw, Alan McDougall, William Kennedy and Jim Thompson
We Need to Tax Billionaires: A fair way to broaden the base
Author notes, for example, that the superrich in France face an effective tax rate half that of the average French person
Cool Machine by Colson Whitehead: Violence, humour and sharp social criticism
Final novel in two-time Pulitzer winner’s Harlem Trilogy traces evolution of its ageing crook characters and of New York itself
The Rise and Fall of American Europe: United States set to be much more transactional
Washington prepared to interfere in European politics to influence policy towards Middle East and US tech interests
Every Exit Brings You Home by Naeem Murr: An absorbing novel
A nuanced narrative that exposes the tragic heritage novelist and protagonist share as Palestinians
Contrapposto by Dave Eggers: A profoundly earnest, funny and sexy read
Author expresses an unusual and emotive quality in this novel – pure, unabashed feeling
New poetry: An indispensable mirror to death-dealing cultures of neglect and abuse
Collections by Stephen de Búrca, Nithy Kasa, Eamon Grennan and Rita Ann Higgins reviewed
On Witness and Respair by Jesmyn Ward: Creative non-fiction blends dreamscapes and family lore
An excellent compendium, and a valuable introduction to the author’s novels
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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Weddings, Births, Deaths and other family notices