Battling everyday demons in the desert heatFICTION: A Hologram for the King, By Dave Eggers, Hamish Hamilton, 312pp, £18.99Sat Jan 19 2013 - 00:00
Paperback of the weekLost Memory of Skin, Russell Banks, Clerkenwell Press, £7.99Sat Jan 19 2013 - 00:00
Elegy for a lost empireFICTION: Joseph Roth’s final novel reads as a sad, loving farewell to a disappearing worldSat Jan 05 2013 - 00:00
Setting the brain on fireFICTION: Every Short Story 1951-2012 , Canongate, 933pp, £30, By Alasdair GraySat Dec 29 2012 - 00:00
Departure of O'Driscoll leaves us all the poorerCivility, a word all too infrequently used, or indeed required nowadays to describe anyone, certainly applies to the Irish poet…Thu Dec 27 2012 - 00:00
Hallelujah chorusAt St Patrick’s Cathedral Choir School in Dublin, which has been educating choristers for six centuries, rehearsals are in full…Sat Dec 22 2012 - 00:00
Top titles from a year of readingBOOKS OF THE YEAR: Our Literary Correspondent chooses the books that made the greatest impression on her in 2012Sat Dec 22 2012 - 00:00
An Irishwoman's DiarySee them on the move, so many passive spoils of war: some trussed in plastic sleeves, and frequently tied either to the car roof…Mon Dec 17 2012 - 00:00
How to get lucky in a time of deceitFICTION: Risk, By CK Stead, MacLehose Press, 267pp, £16.99Sat Dec 15 2012 - 00:00
An Irishwoman's DiaryWeeks before the tapping of reindeer hooves on the roofs of sleeping homes comes the patter of tiny pawsMon Dec 10 2012 - 00:00
Doctor's dinner is master's manoeuvreFICTION: The Fall of the Stone City, by Ismael Kadare, translated by John Hodgson, Canongate, 168pp, 14.99Sat Dec 08 2012 - 00:00
A refreshing trip to the early houseFICTION: Published in Turkey in 1983, Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk’s second novel has only just come out in English &…Sat Nov 24 2012 - 00:00
An Irishwoman's DiaryNavan town library opened its doors to a gathering of readers, many of whom could recall having seen the Irish writer, Mary Lavin…Mon Nov 19 2012 - 00:00
The troubling descent of DegorceFICTION: Where I left my Soul, by Jérôme Ferrari, translated by Geoffrey Strachan, MacLehose Press, 158pp, £12Sat Nov 17 2012 - 00:00
A record eight Irish writers feature on Impac longlistChristmas now tends to come early each year with announcement of the International Impac Dublin Literary Award nominations.Mon Nov 12 2012 - 00:00
An Irishwoman's DiaryTHE 19th-century Irish polymath committed to antiquarianism meets the 20th-century cosmopolitan specialist in the imaginative…Mon Nov 05 2012 - 00:00
If this is suburban life, God help AmericaFICTION: May We Be Forgiven By AM Homes, Granta, 480pp. £12.99Sat Oct 27 2012 - 01:00
Taking care of the tower in European styleThe Guard By Peter Terrin, translated by David Colmer. MacLehose, 242pp. £16.99Sat Oct 20 2012 - 01:00
Hilary Mantel wins Man Booker for historical fiction sequelDYING YOUNG and violently can bring its rewardsWed Oct 17 2012 - 01:00
An Irishwoman's DiaryJAMES JOYCE was well aware of the now largely forgotten Irish composer William Vincent WallaceSat Oct 13 2012 - 01:00
Dark star of the Dumas dynastyBIOGRAPHY: The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, By Tom Reiss, Harvill Secker, 414pp…Sat Oct 13 2012 - 01:00
A masterly tale of melancholiaFICTION: Alison Moore’s debut novel, a meandering walk on the dark side, is deservedly on the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize…Sat Sept 22 2012 - 01:00
War and guilt with too many lyrical flourishesFICTION : The Yellow Birds By Kevin Powers, Sceptre, 226pp. £14.99Sat Sept 15 2012 - 01:00
British fiction will be real winner of this year's Man BookerSOME MAY describe it as an exercise in damage limitation but from the pedestrian Man Booker longlist that left observers underwhelmed…Wed Sept 12 2012 - 01:00
A crime served in mouthwatering bitesFICTION: The Dinner By Herman Koch, translated by Sam Garrett Atlantic, 309pp. £12.99Sat Sept 08 2012 - 01:00
Short circuitThe short story is fluourishing in the US, and no one champions it more than the likeable and laidback Richard Bausch, who takes…Tue Sept 04 2012 - 01:00
A middlebrow spy spoof stuffed with self-regardFICTION: Sweet Tooth By Ian McEwan Jonathan Cape, 323pp. £13Sat Aug 25 2012 - 01:00
All about art, but lacking in artistryFICTION: Toby’s Room By Pat Barker Hamish Hamilton, 264pp. £16.99Sat Aug 18 2012 - 01:00
If this is a novel, what's the story?FICTION: Communion Town By Sam Thompson Fourth Estate, 278pp. £14.99Sat Aug 11 2012 - 01:00
An Irishwoman's DiaryWHEN the TV cameras begin to focus on the sprinters in opening rounds of the men’s 100 metres on the track today, many of us …Sat Aug 04 2012 - 01:00
Art SchoolClassical values and techniques influenced by the Italian Renaissance continue to be taught by instructors from the Florence …Sat Aug 04 2012 - 01:00
'It was the one part I would dream about'The Globe Theatre is set to bring its production of ‘As You Like It’ to the Kilkenny Arts Festival – and with it a rising new…Fri Aug 03 2012 - 01:00
Fiercely satiric critic and last of old-style celebrity writersASK ANY American with an interest in their country extending beyond immediate personal circumstances and odds on, when anything…Thu Aug 02 2012 - 01:00
Outstanding Simon keeps his Irish customers satisfiedWHAT CAN even this adoring fan say about an artist capable of thrilling an audience with a repertoire of great songs while leaving…Sat Jul 14 2012 - 01:00
Diffident and tone deaf: it's a disappointing seasonWhat Dies in Summer By Tom Wright. Canongate, 284pp. £12.99Sat Jul 14 2012 - 01:00
An Irishwoman's DiaryTHERE IS a pleasing irony in noting that Gustav Klimt, the Austrian painter and great innovator in the battle between reality…Tue Jul 10 2012 - 01:00
The sound of SimonGenius is too small a word to describe mellow-voiced, melancholic Paul Simon, master guitarist and composer of many of modern…Sat Jul 07 2012 - 01:00
Council funding for O'Connor literature award under threatFEARS FOR the future of the younger of Ireland’s two major international literature awards threaten to overshadow the outcome…Mon Jul 02 2012 - 01:00
Vargas Llosa: view from the marginsThe Nobel Laureate did not expect to write a novel about Roger Casement, but ‘chance discovery’ led him down a fascinating literary…Mon Jul 02 2012 - 01:00
A mission to expose the madnessFICTION: It can read like a polemic, but Nuruddin Farah’s latest novel paints a vivid picture of the poverty, corrupt politics…Sat Jun 30 2012 - 01:00
It's life, innit? But not as we know itFICTION: Martin Amis is under attack again for his latest book, about a yobbish lottery winnerSat Jun 23 2012 - 01:00
After Bloomsday comes . . . Ribasday?FICTION : Dublinesque By Enrique Vila-Matas, translated by Rosalind Harvey and Anne McLean Harvill Secker, 310pp. £16.99Sat Jun 16 2012 - 01:00
The best book makes an ImpacLITERARY-PANEL judges are invariably criticised, at times vilifiedThu Jun 14 2012 - 01:00
Impac promotes literature but loses in translationToday sees the announcement of the winner of this year’s €100,000 Impac Dublin Literary Award – and its value is more than mere…Wed Jun 13 2012 - 01:00
A showman who made his own worldBICENTENARY: Charles Dickens died on this day in 1870, burnt out at 58. But his books live on. What makes them endure?Sat Jun 09 2012 - 01:00
Young Titans trudge from idealism to apathySHORT STORIES: Amsterdam Stories By Nescio, translated by Damion Searls New York Review Books Classics, 161pp. £7.99Sat Jun 02 2012 - 01:00
A masterclass from Richard FordFICTION: The American writer’s astonishing new novel, about a teacher whose bank-robbing parents sent him to live with a fugitive…Sat May 26 2012 - 01:00
Gazing into the heart of the pastTRAVEL : A Journey to Nowhere By Jean-Paul Kauffmann, translated by Euan Cameron Maclehose Press, 267pp. £18.99Sat May 19 2012 - 01:00
