The Art of Reading Bookclub - Libraries Ireland
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
The Art of Reading
Bookclub
1
The Art of Reading
The Laureate for Irish Fiction is proud
to present The Art of Reading, a monthly
book club for readers across Ireland.
2 3
Introduction
The Art of Reading is curated and hosted “Our experience of reading became “Libraries Ireland are delighted to 2. B
ut even if you’re not in one of the
by Colm Tóibín, Laureate for Irish Fiction more intense and more essential partner with the Laureate for Irish selected book clubs, you can still
2022-2024. Over the course of 2022, during the lockdown. Although reading Fiction and the Arts Council in The Art take part! You can watch or listen
the Laureate will meet a different library is mainly done in silence and when of Reading. The programme blends to a video and audio recording,
book club each month to discuss a work alone, it includes a sense of community, perfectly two areas at the heart of which will be available from the
of fiction by an Irish writer, highlighting an idea of sharing. Readers want to what libraries do: promoting reading Art of Reading web page on the
outstanding Irish writing and celebrating talk about the books they like, to think and literature and connecting and last Thursday of each month.
readers and book clubs. The Laureate’s about the internal workings of a novel empowering communities. We hope to
selected titles include new work by or a story, and exchange ideas on help get as many people as possible 3. E
ach event will be available
contemporary Irish writers and works books, all to enrich the experience of involved in this truly national book club, as a podcast from the Arts
from the past from the Irish literary canon. reading. Reading, as much as writing, is celebrating Irish literature and the joy Council podcast channel at
Each event will be recorded and available an art. It requires a creative response of reading, and sharing their thoughts the end of each month.
to watch online or to listen to as a to the text. No books matters unless and insights with friends and family.”
podcast, so that readers, book lovers and someone is reading it. The purpose 4. L inks and reminders to all of these
book clubs everywhere will be able to join of the Art of Reading Book Club is — Colette Byrne, Chair of the Libraries events will be shared on the Laureate
in the Art of Reading with the Laureate. to deepen the idea of a community Development Committee and Chief for Irish Fiction social media channels.
of readers and to recognize the Executive of Kilkenny County Council,
vitality and excitement in the act of on behalf of public libraries. Find out more or watch back on the Arts
reading and thinking about books.” Council website at: artscouncil.ie/Arts-
How can readers everywhere take in-Ireland/Literature/Laureate-for-Irish-
— Colm Tóibín, Laureate for part in The Art of Reading? Fiction/The-Art-of-Reading-Book-Club/
Irish Fiction 2022-2024
1. Libraries Ireland and the Arts Council Subscribe to the Arts Council Podcast
have paired library book clubs with Channel: https://open.spotify.com/
the selected titles for 2022. These show/08oJHDxsS0To5HLDJAKmbT
book clubs will have the first chance
to hear the Laureate chat about the Follow us on social media:
books, and will have an opportunity Facebook.com/LaureateIrishFiction
to take part in the discussion. If your Twitter: @LaureateFiction
library book club would like to get #TheArtofReading
involved for 2023 you should ask your Instagram: @laureateirishfiction
local library to put your club forward. If
you are not a member of a book club, The Arts of Reading Book Club is
contact your local library to find out an initiative of the Arts Council and
about possible options for joining one. the Laureate for Irish Fiction, in
partnership with Libraries Ireland.
1
Colm Tóibín Contents
His plays include The Testament of
Books & Authors by Month
Mary (2011), nominated for a Tony Award
for Best Play. In 1993, he was elected
06 Small Things Like These (February)
to Aosdána and in 2020 became a
vice-president of the Royal Society of by Claire Keegan
Literature. He is a member of both the
American Academy of Arts and Letters 07 Esther Waters (March)
and the American Academy of Arts and by George Moore
Sciences. His work has been translated
into more than thirty languages. He is 08 The Pages (April)
Credit: Barry Cronin a contributing editor at the London by Hugo Hamilton
Review of Books. In 1995, he received
the E.M. Forster Prize from the American
09 Homesickness (May)
Colm Tóibín was born in Enniscorthy Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2017
by Colin Barrett
Co. Wexford in 1955 and educated at he won the Kenyon Review Award for
University College Dublin. He lived in Literary Achievement and the Richard
Catalonia for several years before he 10 In the Middle of the Fields (June)
C. Holbrooke Distinguished Award from
returned to Dublin to work as a journalist, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. In 2021 by Mary Lavin
becoming Features Editor of In Dublin he was awarded the David Cohen Prize.
in 1981 and editor of Magill in 1982. In He has taught at Stanford University, the 11 Exciting Times (July)
1987, he received a bursary from the Arts University of Texas at Austin, Princeton by Naoise Dolan
Council to support his early writing. His University, the University of Manchester
three travel books are: Bad Blood: A Walk and Columbia University. He is Chancellor 12 The Barracks (August)
along the Irish Border (1987); Homage of the University of Liverpool. by John McGahern
to Barcelona (1990); and The Sign of the
Cross: Travels in Catholic Europe (1984). 13 The Ante-room (September)
His ten novels include The Master (2004),
by Kate O’Brien
winner of the Dublin IMPAC Prize and
the LA Times Novel of the Year; Brooklyn
14 Edith (October)
(2009), winner of the Costa Novel of the
Year; and Nora Webster (2014), winner by Martina Devlin
of the Hawthornden Prize. His two
collections of stories are Mothers and 15 The Last September (November)
Sons (2006), winner of the Edge Hill Prize, by Elizabeth Bowen
and The Empty Family (2010), shortlisted
for the Frank O’Connor Award. 16 Blank Pages and Other stories
(December) by Bernard MacLaverty
Small Things Like These (February) Esther Waters (March)
by Claire Keegan by George Moore
The Laureate says “This short The Laureate says “In this novel,
novel manages to dramatize Moore works like a nineteenth
both private life and public century French painter in
matters. It does so by working in drawing a portrait of a spirited
careful, meticulous, emotionally- young women of reduced
accurate detail, making no grand circumstances facing her destiny
statements about character in an unforgiving world.”
or circumstance. Everything is
intimate, almost low-key, and
yet the implications of the
narrative are far-reaching.”
Claire Keegan’s debut collection of Richard Ford, who said: ‘Keegan is a rarity George Augustus Moore, otherwise film Albert Nobbs, which features a
stories, Antarctica, was a Los Angeles – someone I will always want to read.’ known as GM, was born in Carnacun, Co screenplay co-written by John Banville,
Times Book of the Year. The Observer Mayo in 1852. He was the son of George is based on a story by Moore.
called these stories: ‘Among the finest Keegan’s stories are published in English Henry Moore, an Irish MP. During his
recently written in English’. It was also by Faber & Faber, have appeared in The lifetime he lived in Paris and Dublin as His early writing was influenced by the
awarded the William Trevor Prize, judged New Yorker, Granta, The Paris Review, Best well as London, where he died in 1933. works of modern French writers including
by William Trevor. In 2007, her second American Stories, won numerous awards He wrote prose, drama, memoir, poetry Gustave Flaubert and Émile Zola. Moore is
collection, Walk the Blue Fields, was – and are translated into 17 languages. and art criticism. He was a prolific writer known for introducing French naturalism
published to huge critical acclaim and She is internationally renowned as and his most well-known work includes into English and Irish literature. His
went on to win The Edge Hill Prize for a teacher of creative writing. the autobiography Confessions of a writing is said to have influenced Joyce’s
the strongest collection published in The Young Man (1889), an autobiographical realism and he is often credited as being
British Isles. The prize was adjudicated Her most recent work, Small Things trilogy Hail and Farewell (1911-14) and the first great modern Irish novelist.
by Hilary Mantel. Foster (2010) won The Like These, was published in late 2021. the novels A Mummer’s Wife (1885),
Davy Byrnes Award, then the world’s Esther Waters (1894), Evelyn Innes
richest prize for a story. It was judged by (1896) and Sister Teresa (1901). The
06 07
The Pages (April) Homesickness (May)
by Hugo Hamilton by Colin Barrett
The Laureate says “This is an The Laureate says “Colin Barrett
ingeniously told story, narrated has the ability to create character
by an actual book, a novel by and create a scene in a few
the Austrian writer Joseph sentences. His dialogue that
Credit: Marc O’Sullivan
Roth, offering an account of its Credit: Rolex/Anoush Abrar
seems so spare and clipped
picaresque travels to America manages to establish mood and
and back to Europe, while in build tension. His scenes are
the background we learn of the constructed with great sympathy,
life of Joseph Roth himself and but there is also a bleakness in
the dark times he lived in.” his vision. What is remarkable
in his work is the texture of the
language, the use of metaphor,
the handling of rhythm.”
Hugo Hamilton is the best-selling author Hamilton is a member of Colin Barrett is from County Mayo, Ireland. His story ‘Calm With Horses’ was
of The Speckled People, a memoir of Aosdána and lives in Dublin. In 2009 he was awarded the Penguin adapted for a feature film starring
his German-Irish childhood in Dublin, Ireland Prize, and in 2014 his debut Barry Keoghan, Cosmo Jarvis and
growing up with his German mother His latest novel is The Pages, collection of stories Young Skins was Niamh Algar, released in 2020.
and prohibited by his revolutionary published by Fourth Estate 2021 and published and awarded The Rooney
Irish father from speaking English. As by Knopf in the USA February 2022. Prize, The Frank O’Connor International Colin’s new short story collection,
a novelist and playwright, his work has Short Story Prize and The Guardian First Homesickness, will be published in 2022.
won many international awards, including Book Award. In 2018 he was announced He is also working on his debut novel,
the French Prix Femina Etranger and the as the Rolex Arts Initiative Literary due to be released in summer 2023.
DAAD scholarship in Berlin, as well as Protégé, mentored by Colm Tóibín. His
the prestigious Bundesverdienstkreutz, stories have appeared in The Stinging
awarded by the German state for his Fly, the New Statesman, the New Yorker,
understanding of cultural diversity. Harper’s and have been read on Radio 4.
08 09
In the Middle of the Fields (June) Exciting Times (July)
by Mary Lavin by Naoise Dolan
The Laureate says “These stories The Laureate says “This novel is
are written with a spareness, a a tour-de-force work about exile
wryness, that manage to make and the world of expats in Hong
the source of their immense Kong. Seeking accommodation,
Credit: Diarmuid Peavoy
power ambiguous and mysterious. looking for love, teaching English
In the title story, it is unclear as a foreign language, dealing
what the dominant emotion is, with foreigners, being Irish,
whether it is grief or shock or calling home, are all dramatized
fear or resignation. That way with wit and emotional accuracy
of writing at an angle to easy and a refusal to settle for
assumptions, easy interpretations, easy narrative solutions.”
makes Mary Lavin’s stories
luminous and memorable”
Born in 1912 in Massachusetts, USA, her début collection, Tales from Naoise Dolan is an Irish writer born prizes, including The Women’s Prize for
Mary Lavin was the only child of Irish Bective Bridge (1943), the Guggenheim in Dublin. She studied at Trinity Fiction, the Dylan Thomas Prize and The
parents. The family returned to Ireland Fellowship and an Honorary Doctorate College, followed by a Master’s in Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year
to live when she was a child. She from UCD. Regarded as a pioneering Victorian literature at Oxford. She Award. Exciting Times was shortlisted for
studied English and French in University female author, much of her writing writes fiction, essays, criticism and the An Post Irish Book Awards and the
College Dublin, after which she taught focused on feminist issues and the features for publications including Waterstones Book of the Year in 2020.
French in Loreto College, St Stephen’s topic of widowhood. She died in 1996. The London Review of Books,
Green, Dublin, where she had gone to The Guardian and Vogue. Her second novel is forthcoming.
school herself. She was best known
for her short stories, many of which Naoise’s debut novel Exciting Times was
featured in The New Yorker, where she published by W&N in the UK and by Ecco
was under contract. Lavin received in the US in 2020, and became a Sunday
numerous national and international Times bestseller, widely translated
awards and honours including the and optioned for TV. She has been
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for shortlisted and longlisted for several
10 11
The Barracks (August) The Ante-room (September)
by John McGahern by Kate O’Brien
The Laureate says “This bleak, The Laureate says “This novel is
unrelenting novel portrays a written with great intensity, being
woman in the Irish midlands set over a time period of three
who has married a policeman days in which the focus is on the
and become a surrogate entire life of a single family, all the
mother to his children in the secrets and treacheries coming
time after his first wife’s death. into the open. Time and character
Elizabeth, too, is facing her are dealt with in this book with
own death. Her character is sharp insight, masterful precision.”
drawn with great sympathy.
The most intimate moments
are handled with piercing
sensitivity and truthfulness.”
John McGahern was born in Dublin in 1934 collected and published as The Collected Kate O’Brien was born in 1897 in Her novels were very popular and
and raised in Leitrim and Roscommon. A Stories (1992). He also wrote plays for Limerick. A graduate of UCD, she was an widely read in her time, both in Ireland
graduate of UCD, he worked as a primary radio, television and theatre. He received internationally acclaimed fiction writer. and abroad and her most successful
school teacher and held various academic many awards, including the Æ Award In her early career she worked as a novel, That Lady (1946), was made into
posts at universities in Britain, Ireland and (1962); the Macaulay Fellowship (1964); journalist and found initial literary success a Hollywood film. She died in 1974.
America. He is the author of six novels Chevalier d’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres as a playwright. She also wrote short
and four collections of short stories. His (1989); The Irish Times/Aer Lingus Literary fiction, literary essay, literary criticism and
novels included The Barracks (1963); The Award (1990); the GPA Award (1992); and travel writing. Her first novel, Without My
Dark (1965); The Leavetaking (1975), The the Prix Étranger Ecureuil (1994). He was Cloak (1931), won the Hawthornden and
Pornographer (1980), Amongst Women short-listed for the Booker Prize in 1990 the James Tait Black Memorial prizes.
(1990) and That They May Face the for Amongst Women. His work has been She wrote nine novels in total, including
Rising Sun (2001). He published his much translated into many languages. On his Mary Lavelle (1936) and The Land of
acclaimed Memoir in 2005. His short death in 2006, he was acclaimed as Spices (1941), both of which were
story collections were Nightlines (1970); ‘the most important Irish novelist since banned in Ireland.
and High Ground (1985) which were Samuel Beckett’ by The Guardian.
12 13
Edith (October) The Last September (November)
by Martina Devlin by Elizabeth Bowen
The Laureate says “Edith is The Laureate says “This is
an engrossing and sensitive another novel set during the Irish
portrait of the writer Edith War of Independence. Just as
Somerville during the War of Martina Devlin’s book is about
Independence when her writing by Bassano Ltd © National
Portrait Gallery, London
solitude and introspection, this
partner Violet Ross is dead and centres on a house party, scenes
her own career as a writer not filled with chatter and strange
flourishing. It is a portrait of a silences, things unmentioned
sensitive, solitary figure in a time and unmentionable. And in the
of turmoil, of a woman striking background are the insurgents,
out as an artist in a time when the sense of impending doom.”
there were many barriers”
Martina Devlin has written 11 books, Dublin, where she is currently an adjunct Elizabeth Bowen was born in Dublin the Blitz. Her novel The Last September
including the novels About Sisterland lecturer in Irish literature. She presents in 1899. An only child of Anglo-Irish (1929) recounts the history of Bowen’s
and The House Where It Happened, and the City of Books podcast, sponsored descent, she was educated in England Court and is set during the events
the short story collection Truth & Dare. by the Arts Council and supported by and spent her summers at Bowen’s Court that preceded Irish independence.
Her latest book Edith: A Novel – about the Dublin UNESCO City of Literature and in County Cork. She was a short-story She was awarded the CBE in 1948 and
writer Edith Somerville – will be published the Museum of Literature Ireland. writer, novelist and essayist. Her first received an honorary degree from Trinity
by the Lilliput Press in May. Prizes include book, a collection of stories entitled College Dublin in 1948 and from Oxford
the Royal Society of Literature’s V.S. Encounters, was published in 1923 University in 1956. The Royal Society
Pritchett Prize and a Hennessy Literary with the help of Rose Macaulay of the of Literature made her a Companion of
Award. She writes a weekly current affairs Bloomsbury Group. The Hotel (1927) Literature in 1965. She died in 1973.
column for the Irish Independent and was her first novel. Her most highly
has been named National Newspapers regarded and well-known novels, The
of Ireland commentator of the year. Death of the Heart (1938) and The Heat
Martina is the first holder of a PhD in of the Day (1948), were set in London
literary practice from Trinity College between the World Wars and during
14 15
Blank Pages and other stories
(December) by Bernard MacLaverty
The Laureate says “MacLaverty
offers a masterclass in how to
create character, how to build
scenes by accretion of detail,
how to work with implication
and suggestion, how to write
indirectly and manages to
create more energy and more
expression by working in muted
colours and plain textures.”
Bernard MacLaverty was born in Belfast He has published five novels and six
(14.9.42) and lived there until 1975 when collections of short stories most of which
he moved to Scotland with his wife, are gathered into Collected Stories
Madeline, and four children. He has (2013). He has written versions of his
been a Medical Laboratory Technician, fiction for other media – radio plays,
a mature student, a teacher of English television plays, screenplays, libretti.
and occasionally a Writer-in-Residence Blank Pages, published in August 2021,
(Universities of Aberdeen, Augsburg, is his sixth collection of short stories.
Liverpool John Moore’s and Iowa State).
After living for a time in Edinburgh
and the Isle of Islay he now lives in
Glasgow. He is a member of Aosdána.
16The Arts Council
70 Merrion Square,
Dublin 2, Ireland
artscouncil.ie
facebook.com/artscouncilireland
twitter.com/artscouncil_ie
T +353 1 618 0200
F +353 1 676 1302
Callsave 1890 392 492
18You can also read
