‘It’s the last thing I wanted to write about: God, sex, death, incest, guilt’Eimear McBride’s debut novel, A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing, took 10 years to get published, in which time she felt she had failed. That it has won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year award is more than simple vindicationTue Jun 03 2014 - 01:00
A study that fails to do justice to a great writer: UpdikeAdam Begley’s cold life of John Updike misses the man by focusing on the fictionSat May 31 2014 - 01:00
One visit to the dentist you’ll actually enjoy: To Rise Again at a Decent HourReview: Joshua Ferris’s third novel glides from comedy to tragedy without once losing the plotSat May 24 2014 - 01:00
Tim Winton’s best novel yet: EyrieReview: A fine novel about a good man’s fall from grace, but it is also about trying to live, or to at least make some sense of the effort it requires to even surviveSat May 17 2014 - 01:00
Stolen French painting goes on display in DublinDrawing by realist master returned by Criminal Assets BureauWed May 14 2014 - 01:00
A journey to enjoy – and endure: Compartment No 6 by Rosa LiksomReview: The Russian landscape distracts from poor characterisation and heavy-handed devicesSat May 10 2014 - 01:00
Cruel and unusualEm and the Big Hoom, the first novel by the Mumbai writer Jerry Pinto, is a near-perfect account of a psychologically troubled mother and the shockwaves felt by her familySat May 03 2014 - 01:00
The art of writing about everything and nothingNicholson Baker’s 10th novel is mildly eccentric and at times self-indulgent, but it is also sharp, daring and honestSat Apr 26 2014 - 01:00
Bronze statue of Arkle by Emma McDermott unveiled in MeathGentle Irish steeplechaser honoured on the 57th anniversary of his birthMon Apr 21 2014 - 01:00
Sometimes fiction is better off sticking to the factsThe story of the true-life murder of a mother and children is let down by unconvincing melodramatic subplotsSat Apr 19 2014 - 01:00
The torment of memory and the fear of forgettingThe Brazilian writer Michael Laub’s story of three generations affected by the Holocaust is remarkable for its gifted writing and exceptional translationSat Apr 12 2014 - 01:00
The power of guiltThe new novel by Yiyun Li, winner of the first Frank O’Connor award, is formidably intelligent and stylistically precise, but it lacks empathySat Apr 05 2014 - 01:00
Smuggling Steinbeck under the Nazis’ nosesA piece of wartime propaganda confirmed that the genius of the ‘Grapes of Wrath’ writer lay in his understanding of peopleSat Mar 29 2014 - 01:00
A Darwinian bully under the microscopeIn a brilliant novel, Judith Schalansky’s unhappy anti-heroine takes the survival of the fittest to a heartbreaking extremeSat Mar 22 2014 - 01:00
Willy Vlautin: ‘You try to make something that is a story, and is about life, but also says something that matters’Whether in his outstanding debut, ‘The Motel Life’, or his latest novel, ‘The Free’, the American writer – and key member of Richmond Fontaine – understands the marginalised lives that his characters endureSat Mar 22 2014 - 01:00
Ruby Walsh was wrong: no horse is replaceableThis year's fatalities at Cheltenham were another lesson in the uniqueness of horsesMon Mar 17 2014 - 01:01
A brilliant and pioneering botanical artistAn Irishwoman’s Diary on Wendy WalshMon Mar 17 2014 - 01:01
Mild and quietly tormented: EM Forster’s inner lifeDamon Galgut’s new novel could easily be yet another work of lightly fictionalised biography, yet it is far more than thatSat Mar 15 2014 - 01:00
Real heroes of ‘War Horse’ cast a spellThe puppets in ‘War Horse’ charm and beguile as only horses can – such is the astonishing skill exercisedWed Mar 12 2014 - 01:00
The urbane Austrian who inspired ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’Wes Anderson deserves to be praised if his new film encourages readers to seek out the work of the Viennese literary figure Stefan ZweigSat Mar 08 2014 - 01:00
Brave book of lost souls in Joseph Kony’s Africa‘Thirty Girls’ isn’t perfect. But this compelling fictional account of the abduction of 139 girls from their school in Uganda is an important, consciousness-raising novelSat Mar 01 2014 - 01:00
War stories from the home frontSet in Paris during the Algerian War, Daniel Anselme’s neglected classic evokes the soldier’s dilemmaSat Feb 22 2014 - 01:00
A daring tale that inspired two operasJeremias Gotthelf’s parable about good and evil, fear and courage has enduring powerSat Feb 08 2014 - 01:00
Account of a not so young man in ParisA wonderfully eccentric, conversational and personalised cultural history of ParisSat Feb 01 2014 - 01:00
A voice to rememberAn Irishwoman’s Diary: Why Thomas Hampson is more than a great American baritoneMon Jan 27 2014 - 01:00
A visit to the court of King WitlessAn enduring mix of fairytale and satire, first published in 1911, has much to say about today’s worldSat Jan 25 2014 - 01:00
A dig without depth: short yet overwrittenThe ponderousness of Cynan Jones’s prose gets in the way of a very slight storySat Jan 18 2014 - 01:00
Character flaws hurt a moving taleHumanity alleviates the harshness in Willy Vlautin’s flawed portrait of a damaged USSat Jan 11 2014 - 01:00
Maggie’s war is a narrative of camerasA believable central character sustains this lively novel about draft dodgers in the 1960sFri Jan 03 2014 - 14:50
Solstice pilgrims hail greatest show in living memoryLast-minute appearance by sun at Newgrange proves masterfulMon Dec 23 2013 - 06:02
Audio: Eileen Battersby’s top non-fiction books of the yearFrom Dürer to Barnes, Bach to Bellow: In a podcast companion to her non-fiction Books of the Year 2013, Literary Correspondent Eileen Battersby offers further insight into some of her choices, in conversation with Irish Times journalist Fionnuala MulcahySat Dec 21 2013 - 01:00
Eileen Battersby’s fiction of the yearWorks in translation, some neglected gems and a modern master’s farewell stood out most stronglySat Dec 14 2013 - 01:00
Maverick of the Russian mastersA new translation of the stories of Nikolai Leskov confirms that although different, he is the equal of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and TurgenevSat Dec 07 2013 - 01:00
Betting on a better life among the ruinsIn his simple story about a bullfighting tournament, the Japanese writer Yasushi Inoue captured a nation left shaken by warSat Nov 30 2013 - 01:00
A courageous but flawed response to an outrageJaspreet Singh’s second novel focuses on the massacre of thousands of Sikhs after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, in 1984. But it is only a roughly fleshed out draft of what could have been a major workSat Nov 23 2013 - 01:00
Doris Lessing: matriarch, prophet, maverickAuthor's death, a week shy of her 95th birthday, marks end of fittingly long life of enduring survivorMon Nov 18 2013 - 07:51
Relationships, their stinging hurts and their failures capturedThis is a collection of short stories to shout about, one of the best books published this yearSat Nov 16 2013 - 01:00
I Was Jack Mortimer, by Alexander Lernet-HoleniaSet in Vienna, this fast-moving thriller, first published in 1933, reads as if it was written yesterdaySat Nov 09 2013 - 01:00
Knights, chivalry and a ring of TolkienThe epic author’s influence is apparent, but not overpowering, in this fast-moving adventureSat Nov 02 2013 - 01:24
Flying out of the past on broken wingsFate is not kind to the narrator of Donna Tartt’s vivid, sad and often very funny third novelSat Oct 26 2013 - 01:00
Pig’s Foot, by Carlos AcostaThe acclaimed dancer’s debut novel is as lively and catchy as Cuban musicSat Oct 19 2013 - 01:00
Video: Eleanor Catton wins the Booker with The LuminariesA sprawling narrative from the 19th-century has taken the last Booker prize of its kindWed Oct 16 2013 - 01:00
Nothing Holds Back the Night, by Delphine de ViganAuthor’s candid memoir about her mother’s tragic life and suicide is unsettlingly real and rawSat Oct 12 2013 - 01:00
Short and very sharp: the majesty of Alice MunroMunro’s genius is in the short story, and that is what makes her winning the Nobel Prize for Literature so excitingThu Oct 10 2013 - 17:50
Jhumpa Lahiri: A serious voice that comes from nowhere‘It is not easy to like,’ the candid author says of her latest novel, the Booker-shortlisted ‘The Lowland’Wed Oct 09 2013 - 01:00
Bleeding Edge, by Thomas PynchonThe singular American author punches below his weight again in this misguided take on 9/11 and the dotcom bubbleSat Sept 28 2013 - 01:00
On home groundAn Irishwoman’s Diary: A Derry festival becomes a Heaney tributeTue Sept 24 2013 - 01:00
