John Boyne on Fair Play by Louise Hegarty: A witty debut that celebrates the golden age of crime novels
It takes skill, and even a sense of anarchy, to produce a novel as funny and baffling as this
By John Boyne
Memoirs of Dan Mulvihill: Fulfilling the dream of a veteran of the old IRA
38 Londres Street by Philippe Sands: The parallel stories of mass murderers
Cúirt literature festival at 40: ‘There is a sense of an Irish writing culture exploding around the world’
The Forest is the Path by Gary Lightbody: Moving, lyrical and more than just a companion book to Snow Patrol’s album
New poetry: works by Ange Mlinko, Traveller poets, Jo Burns and Emily Cooper, and Jake Hawkey
The Age of Diagnosis by Suzanne O’Sullivan and No More Normal by Alastair Santhouse: Intelligently exploring questions of immense public importance
Irish Nurses in the NHS: An Oral History by Louise Ryan, Gráinne McPolin and Neha Doshi - Wonderful telling of a story that needed to be told
Book Club
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Author Oisín Fagan: ‘The Irish have gone everywhere and been among the best and the worst’
By Martin Doyle
Children of Radium by Joe Dunthorne: An excellent and unsettling excavation of family secrets
By Ruby Eastwood
How to End a Story: Collected Diaries by Helen Garner review – ‘small, random stabs of extreme interestingness’ captured on the page
By Mia Levitin
Women’s Prize for Fiction 2025: Miranda July, Elizabeth Strout and four debuts make shortlist
By Martin Doyle
The Bureau by Eoin McNamee: If you’re interested in what the Border truly means, read this exceptional novel
By Conor O’Callaghan
A Dictionary of Irish Saints by Pádraig Ó Riain: Wonderfully written and incredibly valuable
By Chris Doyle
Author Shane Hegarty: ‘I’m lucky to see the work done by teachers. They are undervalued’
By Martin Doyle
‘The city is always changing but this is the Dublin of now’: Declan Meade on capturing the capital in words and prose
By Róisín Ingle
Abundance; The Care Economy; The Measure of Progress: ‘The old is dying and the new cannot be born’
By Vic Duggan
Putting Wales First by Richard Wyn Jones: Thinking for Wales - An exciting read with global relevance
By Angela Graham
Francis of Assisi: The Life of a Restless Saint – An empathetic and evenly paced treatment of the medieval saint
By Andrew Roycroft
Elegy, Southwest by Madeleine Watts: A climate-change novel weighed down by a deluge of soupy prose
By Huda Awan
Irish Times readers pick Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These as the best Irish book of the 21st century
By Ella Sloane
