Dara McAnulty on Wainwright Prize shortlist Books newsletter: the latest news and a preview of tomorrow’s pages
Kitten by Stacey Yu: Strange, vibrant and genuinely idiosyncratic novelBuy this for the cat-obsessed youth in your life immediately
The Quickening by Claire McGowan: A powerful novel of motherhood, cowardice and courageA 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 historyBook is essentially a 400-page charge sheet of blunders and scandals that resulted from identity crisis in organisation
This was a battle as old as time... sex versus murder, sleaze versus goreFinders, Seekers is an original short story by Neil Tully, author of acclaimed debut novel The Visit
‘I used to fear middle age, that I’d become invisible, unripe, unattractive, overlooked. But so far it’s fabulous’I used to fear middle age, that I’d become invisible, unattractive, overlooked. But the rulebook has been rewritten for Millennial women like me, writes Vicki Notaro
Séamas O’Reilly on best graphic novels of 2026 so farDogs 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 fictionDaring debut novel explores themes around publishing, identity and bland writing trends
David Sedaris: ‘I don’t know how to buy a plane ticket. I don’t open any mail that doesn’t look like fan mail’The US writer and humorist talks about the serious business of being funny on the page and at his live readings
A trivial comedy for serious YA readers, and more summer page-turners for teensProlific author Elle Kennedy has published her first YA novel, Thornbird, a satisfyingly twisty and swoony mystery tale
Comedian Alan Davies: ‘I talk about what my father did, and how I had him arrested’In Think Ahead, the comic talks about being sexually abused as a child. ‘People laugh their heads off, then they go totally silent and listen’
Your husband is in an office wearing clean clothes and you are on a bus to Donegal wearing a nappyAmateur Breeders is a new short story by Alice Ryan
Marilyn Monroe: a life of endless mystery and metamorphosis in booksAs 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 yearsRather than tackle all of Morris’s books, author summarises just one-third of total collection
‘Build up an extreme well of confidence’: Daniel Kraus on getting in the writing zoneIn Angel Down, the author adopted a single-sentence structure to reflect the uncertainty of warfare
A Chorus of Ears by Denise Riley: Enjoy the company of an egregiously intelligent companionRiley 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 essaysTimely 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 bellAuthors 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 & 60sNew books by Tony Shaw, Alan McDougall, William Kennedy and Jim Thompson
Nero New Writers Prize launchedBooks newsletter: a wrap of the latest news and preview of tomorrow’s books pages, including details of Irish Book Week and Kilkenny Arts Festival
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
‘It’s a bit mad’: Dubliner Djamel White reacts to being longlisted for Booker Prize 2026The Irish writer in the running for the £50,000 literary prize for his debut novel, All Them Dogs, against former winners Marlon James, Douglas Stuart
Cool Machine by Colson Whitehead: Violence, humour and sharp social criticismFinal novel in two-time Pulitzer winner’s Harlem Trilogy traces evolution of its ageing crook characters and of New York itself
I looked at the busman’s huge knuckles and decided I’d rather die than go homeBread Is Bad for Ducks is a new short story by Elaine Garvey, author of The Wardrobe Department
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
Booker Prize 2026: Irish debutant features on longlist alongside Marlon James, Douglas Stuart and moreDjamel White’s gangland novel All Them Dogs is up against former winners Marlon James and Douglas Stuart as well as Elizabeth Strout and nine others
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
Meet the bestselling Irish author you may never have heard ofCork-based Jean Grainger writes Irish historical fiction books, popular in the US among the diaspora
Contrapposto by Dave Eggers: A profoundly earnest, funny and sexy readAuthor expresses an unusual and emotive quality in this novel – pure, unabashed feeling
Author Max Porter on David Walliams: ‘F**k that guy, f**k the work. They are horrible books’Max Porter on writing for children, lessons from Palestine, and his friendship with Cillian Murphy
New poetry: An indispensable mirror to death-dealing cultures of neglect and abuseCollections by Stephen de Búrca, Nithy Kasa, Eamon Grennan and Rita Ann Higgins reviewed
Michael Michael lived to be 100. He died at a moment of his own choosingFox Wedding is a new short story by Leonard and Hungry Paul author Rónán Hession
On Witness and Respair by Jesmyn Ward: Creative non-fiction blends dreamscapes and family loreAn excellent compendium, and a valuable introduction to the author’s novels
Herta Müller’s The Village on the Edge of the World: Survival under Ceausescu’s regimeA book about language, memory and the imagination’s resistance to fear
Signals by Saira Hameed: Hooray for hormonesExcellent overview of disorder in our internal chemistry shows author to be an optimistic cheerleader for endocrinology
Andrew Cunning: ‘Being second best is nothing to be afraid of! I’ve been telling my brother that for years’‘Writing a novel is pretty audacious to begin with. Why not lean into the audacity a little?’
The Prophetic Voice: Jean Sulivan, a writer who spoke up for the little guy and girlExploring what it means to ‘live a good life’
How Do People Stay the Same by Mark Bowles: The making of the manA tender novel whose meditations on the self’s uncertain parameters urge excavating the past to better understand the present
The Traveller by Andrea Wulf: George Forster’s quest for common humanityAt age 17, Forster was invited by the British admiralty to accompany Captain James Cook on his second expedition
Downfall of a King: Juan Carlos paradox strains even Paul Preston’s superb abilitiesOnce hailed as the saviour of Spanish democracy, scandal precipitated the former monarch’s abdication and exile
The August Coup by Robert Service: masterly scholarship written like a political thrillerDensity of detail in Service’s research means this book is likely to become a definitive account of episode
Books in brief: The Wrong Son feels like a fascinating late-night conversation with a strangerMoving memoirs from Laurie Hertzel, Kevin Sharkey and Neil Griffiths
The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams: Strange, disturbing and sometimes very goodThe novel is more concerned with the pettiness and absurdities of cancel culture than the scrambled interactions that spark them
The Medieval Castles of Ireland: Fascinating insights into secrets of the past A comprehensive guide to buildings that chronicle centuries of conquest, settlement and adaptation
Neither Confirm Nor Deny by John Ware: Revelations about Britain’s morally compromised ‘dirty war’The book about Troubles agents raises troubling questions around the rationale for espionage
Alan Titley: the most important prose writer in Irish since Máirtín Ó CadhainThe extent to which Titley has taught us to read differently in Irish is persuasively demonstrated in each page of these welcome critical essays
Killing and destruction in Gaza: new book examines Israel’s campaign and the enablersFintan Drury’s Genocide: Sponsoring the Destruction of Palestine
Dara McAnulty on Wainwright Prize shortlist By Martin DoyleListen to Dara McAnulty on Wainwright Prize shortlist Listen | 10:03
Book of Lives by Margaret Atwood: a literary titan on the art of writing – and art of living By Nathan SmithListen to Book of Lives by Margaret Atwood: a literary titan on the art of writing – and art of living Listen | 05:27
Kitten by Stacey Yu: Strange, vibrant and genuinely idiosyncratic novelBuy this for the cat-obsessed youth in your life immediately By Lucy Sweeney Byrne
Flirting with Evil – The Catholic Church in the Age of Total War and Globalisation: A sprawling but intelligent history
Your husband is in an office wearing clean clothes and you are on a bus to Donegal wearing a nappyBy Alice Ryan
New poetry: An indispensable mirror to death-dealing cultures of neglect and abuseBy Catriona Clutterbuck