Into the Wreck by Susannah Dickey: Unexpected page-turner centred around a family funeral
Set in Northern Ireland, Dickey manages to skilfully include the brutalising legacy of the Troubles while simultaneously keeping it in the background of this novel
By Edel Coffey
Poem about Beirut car bombing wins Moth Poetry Prize
Few and Far Between by Jan Carson: compelling fiction is a bravura act of imagination
Dalkey Book Festival: Salman Rushdie among authors announced in line-up
After the Shy Girl controversy, where does publishing’s AI problem leave authors and readers?
Look What You Made Me Do by John Lanchester: a revenge story of Millennials versus Boomers
On Strategists and Strategy: Collected Essays 2014-2024 by Lawrence Freedman: absence of ethical leadership akin to a ‘drunk clinging to a lamppost’
Music books: From the ugly side of the business to becoming a household name, and a dialogue of trust
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POETRY
Mary O’Donnell: ‘I’d happily sign off on a 10% Leaving Cert bonus for English, music and art’
By Martin Doyle
Author Emma Donoghue: ‘I grew up very normal, yet had this secret side that I thought everyone would consider foul’
By Martin Doyle
An Arrow in Flight by Mary Lavin: Excellent exploration of a different yet similar Ireland
By Julia Kelly
Banshee: Mythological Irish Women Retold edited by Ailbhe Malone – Breathtakingly varied tales rekindle storytelling tradition
By Adrienne Murphy
Nine Days in May by Jonathan Schneer and Radicals: The Working Classes and the Making of Modern Britain by Geoff Andrews
By Brian Hanley
Contentious Spaces by Rosaleen McDonagh: Prose that’s measured, assured and fully human
By Adam Wyeth
David Keenan: ‘For me, the names of places and streets in the North have incredible magic to them’
By John Self
Defiance by Loubna Mrie: A gripping, devastating account of a Syrian woman’s revolution
By Sally Hayden
Dublin Literary Award 2026 shortlist: ‘Literature at its most international, most ambitious, and most humane’
By Martin Doyle
Seán Lemass, The Lost Memoir: Leadership, Ireland’s economic transformation and Fianna Fáil
By Andrew Lynch
Everything That Is Beautiful by Louise Nealon: a breathless romance and a torrid hurling tale
By Mei Chin
Author Susannah Dickey: ‘With each book I find myself more invested in writing Ireland’
By Martin Doyle
EL by Thaddeus Ó Buachalla: An early contender for most ambitious Irish novel of the year
By Declan Burke
Communion by Jon Doyle: A genuinely idiosyncratic way of describing the everyday
By Lucy Sweeney Byrne
London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe: Mastery of timing makes this investigation a page-turner
By Mia Levitin
Mr Hoo and Other Stories: No judgment in these barrister’s tales united by literary mastery
By Éilís Ní Dhuibhne
Nonesuch by Francis Spufford: Distinctly Narnian in timbre – pure story of the richest kind
By Kevin Power
Among Communists by Sinéad Morrissey: memoir captures North in pressure cooker of weirdness
By Nicholas Allen
