My Books of 2021
My choice of the best new (and some old) books I read this year.
Read MoreBooks of the Year lists, 2021
My annual summary of highlights of Books of the Year features in the media.
Read MoreWilliam Wall's 'Smugglers in the Underground Hug Trade'
William Wall’s new book of poems tells the story of a strange year, moving from Italy just before the pandemic started to life in County Cork, culminating in Christmas 2020.
Read More'Afterlives' by Abdulrazak Gurnah
The most recent novel by the 2021 Nobel Laureate, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Afterlives (2020), entirely justifies the Nobel Committee’s choice.
Read MoreDeborah Levy's Living Autobiography
Across the three terrific books which make up her ‘living autobiography’, Deborah Levy opens up to us the mind of a writer with honesty, sharp humour and enormous skill.
Read MoreClaire Keegan's 'Small Things Like These'
Claire Keegan’s marvellous Small Things Like Us is a deeply moving portrait of a man’s life in mid-1980s Ireland, a superb follow-up to her masterpiece of a long short story, Foster.
Read MoreRobert Eaglestone in 'Impact' 26
Professor Robert Eaglestone’s ‘Impact’ pamphlet number 26, is well-worth the attention of English teachers.
Read MoreFree To Be Me
Free To Be Me is an excellent new publication from Children’s Books Ireland. Subtitled ‘The Diversity, Inclusion and Representation Reading Guide’ it importantly fills in a gap in advice available to parents, teachers and children in Ireland.
Read More'Handiwork' by Sara Baume
Sara Baume has now written three lovely books, each characterised by carefulness, tenderness and a calm attention to the natural world. The latest is handiwork from Tramp Press, another book full of quiet pleasures.
Read More'The Historians' by Eavan Boland
Eavan Boland’s beautiful, wise final collection of poems, The Historians, is a model of how to use language to think about what we are.
Read More'White Spines' by Nicholas Royle
Nicholas Royle’s White Spines: confessions of a book collector is his account of his obsessive collection of Picador books over many years, and it’s funny, self-aware and self-deprecating - a delight for those of us who love the physicality of books.
Read MoreJ.L. Carr's 'A Month in the Country'
J.L. Carr’s A Month in the Country (1980) is a perfectly-achieved novel. In its 85 pages it contains multitudes.
Read MoreA Manual For Cleaning Women
Lucia Berlin’s title story for her collection A Manual for Cleaning Women is funny, painful, sharp, observant: just marvellous.
Read MoreThe Usborne Complete Shakespeare
This collection of re-tellings of 37 plays is highly recommended for children, and will also be useful for adults.
Read More'Beowulf' by Maria Dahvana Headley
Maria Dahvana Headley’s sparkling new version of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf also features a brilliant introductory essay on the world as it is right now.
Read MoreIn The End, It Was All About Love
Musa Okwonga’s In The End, It Was All About Love is a small book with many pleasures.
Read MoreThe Lost Café Schindler
Meriel Schindler’s The Lost Café Schindler: one family, two wars and the search for truth is an absorbing account of the ways the fortunes of a Jewish family in Austria ebbed and flowed through history.
Read MoreWilliam Trevor's Schooldays
My long essay on the Irish Times website today on William Trevor and the influence of his schooldays on his fiction is here. Today would have been his 93rd birthday.
Notes on Grief
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s latest (very short) book recounts how her father’s death in 2020 hit it brutally, in ways she was unprepared for.
Read MoreA Swim in a Pond in the Rain
George Saunders has written a superb book presenting and then commenting on seven great stories by the Russian masters. It is marvellous.
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