Women’s Work: The rigged, claustrophobic childminder systemBook review: The domestic labour system is deeply flawed, argues Megan StackMon Jul 15 2019 - 06:00
Mouth Full of Blood by Toni Morrison review: Vast, deep and superbThese essays take us behind the curtain, which only increases our respect and aweSat Mar 02 2019 - 06:00
An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma review: Dive right inThis strong, unusual story is narrated by a man’s chi – life force and guardian spiritSat Jan 19 2019 - 06:00
Seashaken Houses: fascinating account of lighthouses and their keepersTom Nancollas has meticulously researched the history of rock lighthouses around Ireland and the UKSat Oct 13 2018 - 06:00
Maeve Binchy: Was she a ‘quiet’ feminist?Despite critics’ perceptions, the writer addressed radical topics throughout her careerSat Sept 29 2018 - 06:00
Tara Flynn: Rage-In review – a caustic, compassionate plea for empathyThis collection of Tara Flynn’s writing is zingy, humorous and movingSat Jun 16 2018 - 06:00
Let’s hear it for the hyphenPunctuation should remove ambiguity, but a hyphenated identity can be great for writers and charactersThu Jun 07 2018 - 06:35
Lessons from the world’s oldest companies: tales of boom and bustBook of essays by the Dark Angels collective explores the relationship between longevity and prosperitySat May 26 2018 - 06:00
Sharp review: For those female US writers ‘too smart for their own good’Some strained handovers, but Michelle Dean has assembled an impressive castSat May 19 2018 - 06:00
Census by Jesse Ball review: Curiously complicated and persuasively simpleDaily battle of caring for someone with a disability is explored on this journey filled with anonymitySat Apr 07 2018 - 06:00
The Cow Book: A farmer’s son uneasy return to LongfordReview: Returned emigrant John Connell’s vivid account of a year on the family farmSat Mar 10 2018 - 06:00
This Family of Things review: Exposing a metronome of joy and despairAlison Jameson keeps the pendulum moving until we reach a determinedly unsentimental – and much more satisfying for it – placeSat Jun 24 2017 - 06:00
Winnie & George: An Unlikely Union review – love across the divideAllison Murphy tells the story of James Connolly’s secretary and a first World War veteranSat Jan 28 2017 - 06:00
What If? A Chronicle of What Might Have Been review: A game everyone playsEditor Annie West has illustrated each of the 24 written pieces as well as including her own what-ifsSat Nov 19 2016 - 06:00
Maeve Brennan’s stories: ‘a bid for sanity, one sentence at a time’Henrietta McKervey on learning to appreciate a neglected Irish author’s ‘lovely and unbearable’ stories through the insights of Anne Enright and Roddy DoyleTue Nov 08 2016 - 06:20
As I hand over my paper crown, what have I learned about my own book?Henrietta McKervey, author of The Heart of Everything, May’s Irish Times Book Club title, reflects on the light shed on her work by each reader’s unique torchTue May 31 2016 - 16:24
If we are the sum of our memories, what if we start to forget?If The Heart of Everything is about memory and what remembering means, then it’s also about its mossy flipside: forgetting, writes author Henrietta McKerveyThu May 19 2016 - 12:26
The Heart of Everything by Henrietta McKervey: an extract‘Raymond loves his mother, but it has become an abstract. It lies somewhere above his respect for indie music, below his love for Guinness and Krzysztof Kieslowski films’Wed May 11 2016 - 12:40
Missing persons: out of sight, but not out of mindHenrietta McKervey on the preoccupations at the heart of her novel, The Heart of Everything – the disappeared, ageing, dementia and identities within familiesWed May 04 2016 - 14:08
Henrietta McKervey: books can be bridges between childhood and adulthoodThough I will never begrudge a minute I have spent in the company of PG Wodehouse, I do envy the book bridges that now exist and will help guide my children towards adulthoodThu Mar 03 2016 - 06:26
Travelling in the wake of the Shipping Forecast newsThe winner of the annual Maeve Binchy Travel Award writes about her experience of visiting all 31 of the lighthouses that feature on the BBC shipping forecastSat May 23 2015 - 07:30
When writing historical fiction, nothing beats the first draft of history for researchWith her debut novel What Becomes of Us exploring 1916 through the lens of 1960s Ireland, Henrietta McKervey learnt how to use historical detail to good effect in fictionThu Apr 02 2015 - 08:00
