The Art of Reading Book Club with Colm Tóibín | Episode 35: ‘How to Build a Boat’ by Elaine Feeney
The December Art of Reading book club features Laureate for Irish Fiction Colm Tóibín in conversation with writer Elaine Feeney about his book 'How to Build a Boat'.
“Elaine Feeney’s second novel, set in a small, fictional Irish town on the west coast, tells the story of Jamie, a boy who seeks to connect with his dead mother. ‘Feeney’s prose,’ The New York Times has written, ‘is both careful and relaxed — detailed in its description of place and character and of the effortful human urge to find order in the natural world.’” — Colm Tóibín
Learn more about the Art of Reading Book Club and the Laureate for Irish Fiction programme: https://www.artscouncil.ie/uploadedFiles/wwwartscouncilie/Content/Arts_in_Ireland/Literature/Laureate_for_Irish_Fiction/Art%20of%20Reading%20Book%20Club%202024.pdf
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The Art of Reading Book Club with Colm Tóibín | Episode 34: ‘Close to Home’ by Michael Magee
The November Art of Reading book club features Laureate for Irish Fiction Colm Tóibín in conversation with writer Michael Magee about his book 'Close to Home'.
“Michael Magee’s first novel deals with the Troubles as both legacy and aftermath. At its centre is Sean who has returned to Belfast. The book has been described by The Guardian as ‘a staggeringly humane and tender evocation of class, violence and the challenge of belonging in a world that seems designed to keep you watching from the sidelines.’”
— Colm Tóibín
Learn more about the Art of Reading Book Club and the Laureate for Irish Fiction programme: https://www.artscouncil.ie/Arts-in-Ireland/Literature/Laureate-for-Irish-Fiction/The-Art-of-Reading-Book-Club/
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The Art of Reading Book Club with Colm Tóibín | Episode 33: 'The Alternatives' by Caoilinn Hughes
The October Art of Reading book club features Laureate for Irish Fiction Colm Tóibín in conversation with writer Caoilinn Hughes about her novel ‘The Alternatives’.
“Caoilinn Hughes’s novel deals with the lives of four brilliant sisters, lives that have been deeply scarred by the death of their parents. As Hernan Diaz has written, this is ‘a tale about sisterhood, a novel of ideas, a chronicle of our collective follies, a requiem for our agonizing species… in a prose full of gorgeous surprises…glows with intelligence, compassion, and beauty.’” — Colm Tóibín
Learn more about the Art of Reading Book Club and the Laureate for Irish Fiction programme: https://www.artscouncil.ie/Arts-in-Ireland/Literature/Laureate-for-Irish-Fiction/The-Art-of-Reading-Book-Club/
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The Art of Reading Book Club with Colm Tóibín | Episode 32: ‘Prophet Song’ by Paul Lynch
“Paul Lynch’s novel, winner of the 2023 Booker Prize, is set in the near future in a real Dublin in which a totalitarian regime has come to power. ‘If there was ever a crucial book for our current times,’ The Guardian has written, ‘it’s Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song.’”
Learn more about the Art of Reading Book Club and the Laureate for Irish Fiction programme: https://www.artscouncil.ie/Arts-in-Ireland/Literature/Laureate-for-Irish-Fiction/The-Art-of-Reading-Book-Club/
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The Art of Reading Book Club with Colm Tóibín | Episode 31 'The Lonely Sea and Sky' by Dermot Bolger
The August Art of Reading book club features Laureate for Irish Fiction Colm Tóibín in conversation with writer Dermot Bolger about his novel 'The Lonely Sea and Sky'
“The novel tells the story of the rescue by a small Irish boat of 168
German sailors during World War II. The narrator is Jack Roche, a
14-year-old Wexford lad whose father has been killed at sea. Part
historical fiction, part coming-ofage narrative, this is a perceptive
and exciting novel about life at sea as a way of dramatizing human
relations at their most intense.” — Colm Tóibín
Learn more about the Art of Reading Book Club and the Laureate for Irish Fiction programme: https://www.artscouncil.ie/Arts-in-Ireland/Literature/Laureate-for-Irish-Fiction/The-Art-of-Reading-Book-Club/
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