There are many ways we can celebrate St. Patrick’s Day: go on a bender, kiss everyone in sight, projectile vomit into some shrubbery, be the bastard who pinches someone for not wearing an appropriate amount of green, or all of the above. In addition to the general acts of vandalism and stupidity that will take place in a matter of hours, we suggest you pick up a copy of The Granta Book of the Irish Short Story, edited by Anne Enright. We’ve come up with a list of ten contemporary Irish authors you need to know, because they’re masters of their craft, and because you’re going to need a big book to hide under when you commute to work tomorrow.
As Enright writes in the introduction: “If Ireland loves you, then you must be doing something wrong.” Here’s to the dreamers, the misanthropes, and the lonely souls contained in this collection, and long live the short story.
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For fiction writers, the Man Booker Prize is like the Academy Awards — actually, since this prize is only open to citizens of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland, make that the BAFTA’s. Once summertime roles around, anyone whose novel was published that year eagerly sits by their phone in anticipation of the call letting them know they’ve been nominated for the prestigious literary accolade. Being nominated is good for publicity, but that extra £50,000 ($82,000) prize isn’t something to shake a stick at. Just ask last year’s winner Aravind Adiga whose novel The White Tiger has currently sold over half a million copies.
For those of you who may enjoy a few new additions to your summer reading list, here’s a cheat sheet to help you navigate the thirteen nominees. Read More »
Memorial Day marks the de facto start of summer, but since it also marks a lot of rad TV marathons (which reminds us: SoapNET, thank you so much for Donnarama), it’s understandable that you may not have had a chance to pick up your big fat beach book yet. (We spent the weekend finally finishing up Richard Price’s much-buzzed about Lush Life, a crime mystery which was good, but ended with a bit of a whimper. And definitely not a beachy read.) To get you started, here’s a summary of what the Internet’s literati are recommending. Read More »
Colm Tóibín deftly combines creativity and criticism in his work — a covetable skill he gained from a life spent as a journalist, critic, travel writer, playwright, and novelist. With his new novel, Brooklyn, now available, the award-winning Irish writer chatted with our sister publication Boldtype about crossing mediums, dealing with identity labels, and why being a novelist is your parents’ worst nightmare.
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Last week, The New York Observer reported that Joanna Smith Rakoff was asked by her publisher, Scribner, to change the title of her debut novel, as it turned out to be the very same title another Scribner author, Colm Toíbín. This news seems to have drawn some minor ire around the web:
“Would the young debut novelist mind getting out of the way?” [NY Observer]
“Listen, baby, I totally think you’re the shit, but, see, this other guy has WAY more profile than you, and he wants to title his book the same thing you do… so even though you’ve been working on this for years, I’d like you to come up with something else for the midlist catalo—er, I mean, publicists to use.” [Bookninja] Read More »
