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John McGahern, A Writing Life: Biography of literary giant who understood the human condition
John McGahern: A Writing Life Author: 978-0-571-37565-3 Publisher: £25 Prof Frank Shovlin edited John McGahern’s letters in 2021, a task that involved serious background research into the writer’s friends, literary acquaintances, family and people involved in
The Boy by Mark Gyves: Promising underworld premise diluted by attention to detail
The Boy Author: 978-1-83501-581-0 Publisher: £14.99; 317pp The Boy by Mark Gyves has a promising setup. It’s a debut about a precocious young Cork boy, a washed-up genius of a father who married into a family with IRA connections, and a mother’s death that is
John McPhee: Encounters in Wild America; Hemingway Knows Nothing; Ninety-Two: A Life in Football Grounds
John McPhee: Encounters in Wild America (Library of America, €44.99) A collection of a masterful writer on the natural world who crafts his non-fiction subjects with a novelist’s hand. McPhee created four quiet masterpieces of reportage with translucent prose
What Should My Children Do? by Daniel Susskind: An optimistic book about AI
What Should My Children Do?: How to Flourish in the Age of AI Author: 9780241791172 Publisher: £20; 240pp What Should My Children Do? is the most common question put to Daniel Susskind when he speaks about artificial intelligence (AI) and the future of work.
Eoin McNamee: ‘I’m from Kilkeel so I know exactly what an Orange march is’
Tell us about your new collection of short fiction, The Comets. Two short novels and 15 short stories. A seam of work started in my early 20s that when put together felt as if this had been the real life’s work all along. What was it like, rereading stories,
Protocols by Andrew Huberman: A book about the brain that could change lives
Protocols: An Operating Manual for the Human Body Author: 9781529921281 Publisher: £19.99; 654pp Before the launch of this health guide, the publisher promised a fanfare of publicity that would have outdone memoirs from presidents and Nobel Prize winners. This
Ply by Hernan Diaz: Sci-fi thriller and philosophical treatise a marvel of breadth and concept
Ply Author: 978-1037407161 Publisher: £20; 456pp Following his Pulitzer-winning novel Trust in 2022, this much-anticipated new book from Hernan Diaz will not disappoint in its brilliance, breadth and concept. Hugely ambitious, it explores the big themes that
Sleepers in the Snow by Joanne Harris: Novel is a mix of ghost story and personal tragedy
Sleepers in the Snow Author: 978-1399604826 Publisher: £22; 255pp Ghost story? Family tragedy? Distressing account of a mind unravelling in a series of painful, stuttered jumps? Sleepers in the Snow is all these – and often all at once. Kirkhill is an isolated
Poem of the week: Old Walls
Jack B. Yeats, 1945 Rather than re-live the endless, smothered minutes of your dying, your fevered body bristling and thin beneath the sheets, your hand too weak to
X + Y = K by Ciaran Carson: Excellent examination of reality in the context of art and war
X + Y = K Author: 9781807620059 Publisher: €16.95; 373pp Pushed to say what X + Y = K is about, I’d maybe say it begins, at least, with an investigation into modern Spiritualism, beginning in new York in 1848 with the Fox family and their famous “rappings”,
"Book's idol is Rip Hamilton?"
Duane Rankin: Q: "Book's idol is Rip Hamilton?" A: "One of them." ...
Confessions of a dissident Jew
I speak here, today, as a woman who is proud to define herself as a dissident Jew. Proud to be “dissident” because, with
The Secret Power of Ambivalence
The most maddening thing about life is also the most beautiful: its indeterminacy. The course of our lives, the fate of our species, the future of the universe: all undecided. But because possibility is the hardest thing to bear, we sedate ourselves with
During Banned Books Week, librarians weigh threat of 'soft censorship'
Children’s librarian Sarah Quigley still remembers when the call came in earlier this year, midway through a mid-morning storytime packed with young children. She had just finished Tasha Spillett’s “Raven’s Ribbons,” a book about
The Best 'Hunger Games' Replacement Officially Returns With New Release
Remember that YA dystopia craze where every book was based
‘Transformers,’ ‘G.I. Joe’ and ‘Turok’ Officially Return With New 2027 Comic Series
Skybound Entertainment, Robert Kirkman's production
‘Please Don’t Touch the Body’ author Emily Doyle hated zombies. Until now
Emily Doyle, who received her MFA from UC Riverside, is the Los Angeles-based author of the short story collection “Please Don’t Touch the Body.” Q. What’s something about your book that no one knows? On its surface, “Please Don’t Touch ...
5 takeaways Harlan Coben’s memoir
Harlan Coben says he always thought his fiction had nothing to do with his real life as a suburban dad. ”I make stuff up; what do I know about murder and mayhem and all these things?” And then he wrote ...
York Co. board votes to move library books with LGBTQ, sexual content out of kids’ section
Exclusive: The library board overwhelmingly approved moving books after public complaints over sexual and LGBTQ content. ...
Captain Marvel Officially Returns for New Series
While Captain Marvel is currently missing in action in the MCU, she's about to see new life on the
Marvel’s New Editor-in-Chief Explains Kevin Feige’s Role in the Comics’ Next Creative Era [Exclusive]
Marvel’s next big idea could start with a writer, an artist, or a
Asad Rahmani: “We need to bring back vultures to restore ecological balance”
The ornithologist and
HT Picks; New Reads
On the reading list this week is a debut
Review: The First House by Avni Doshi
Avni Doshi’s The First
Peter Prince obituary
Author and screenwriter best known for the novel The Good Father, adapted as a film starring Anthony Hopkins
How Italy Spawned the Western Far Right
A longtime Rome correspondent reflects on the political trends in his adopted home. ...
Book Publishers Are Quietly Using More AI. Staff Are Revolting
Workers at three major publishing houses tell WIRED that LLMs are being used for publicity, cover art, back cover copy, and emails, as some execs push junior staff to champion the tech. ...
Kamala Harris has a 2028 opening — and a 2024 problem
If Kamala Harris runs for president again, she would begin with advantages no rival could match: near-universal name recognition, experience in the White House and the hard-earned lessons of already having carried the party’s banner. Harris and husband Doug
Goosebumps author brings a night of horror, nostalgia to Sacramento’s Crest Theater
The Sacramento Public Library held the Q&A event with R.L. Stine at Sacramento’s Crest Theater on Wednesday, Oct. 7. ...