The arrival of the Hennessy New Irish Writing page and awards at The Irish Times was heralded last Saturday. The page will appear on the last Saturday of every month. This Saturday sees the publication of this year's first short story and selection of poems.

John Connolly gets his teeth into Darkmouth, the first novel in Shane Hegarty's much-anticipated children's comic fantasy series. Éilís Ní Dhuibhne enjoys Quite a Good Time to be Born: A Memoir 1935-1975 by David Lodge, and Tony Clayton-Lea tunes in to Richard Balls' Be Stiff: The Stiff Records Story.

Eileen Battersby is staggered by Laird Hunt's Neverhome. Sarah Gilmartin's New Fiction column looks at If I Fall, If I Die by Michael Christie. Chris Mullin is charmed by Robert Tombs's The English and Their History, while Isabelle Cartwright's Word for Word column gets to grips with the question: why do we read?

Last but not least, Sara Keating warns in her ebooks column that disruptively dozy digital reading can be hazardous to your health.