Author Seán Farrell: ‘Dermot Bolger said there was a whiff of silage off my novel. I think that was a compliment’
The novelist on his debut novel, Frogs for Watchdogs; Raymond Chandler’s writing advice; and why he would not invite any writers to his dinner party
By Martin Doyle
Beartooth by Callan Wink: Spare and remarkable
Books in brief: The Princess of 72nd Street; The World Administered by Irishmen; The Lamb
The Boyhood of Cain by Michael Amherst: An interesting and unusual book told from a 12-year-old’s perspective
Looking at Women Looking at War by Victoria Amelina: Valuable, vivid, frustrating
Wild West Village by Lola Kirke: Frank, often darkly comedic accounts of celebrity-adjacent family antics
The Secret Painter by Joe Tucker: A complex, multilayered portrait of an ostensibly ordinary working-class life
Poem of the Week: Something
Book Club
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Frogs for Watchdogs by Seán Farrell: Tremendous debut set in 1980s Co Meath floats free of constraints
By Alex Clark
A breakthrough era for women’s writing, from Edna O’Brien’s risks to JK Rowling’s Harry Potter debut
By Paula McGrath
Author Elaine Garvey: When I was a teenager, you couldn’t be ‘easy’ but you couldn’t be ‘frigid’ either. Whatever you did was wrong
By Edel Coffey
For girls of my generation, especially working class girls, lack of confidence was touted as a positive
By Sharon Guard
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This and The World after Gaza: holding the West to account
By Oliver Farry
The Vanishing Point by Paul Theroux: If this is his last round–up, his final words are good and true ones
By Pat Carty
