Books newsletter: a wrap of the latest news and preview of tomorrow’s pages

Critic’s interrogation of the Irish intellectual tradition began by questioning whether there was one worthy of the name

Frogs for Watchdogs described by judge Colm Tóibín as ‘pitch-perfect, tonally seamless, utterly immersive’

Scottish author Douglas Stuart, who won with Shuggie Bain in 2020, is back with John of John, and Jamaican writer Marlon James, who won in 2015 with A Brief History of Seven Killings, returns with The...

The author on her new novel, Stations, moving south from the North, and how she ‘hired’ Gillian Anderson

The broadcaster turned entrepreneur on messianic tech billionaires, and his new book tracking his journey from tech-optimism to disillusionment to a new cautious hope

From Elizabeth I’s backing of early voyages to royal investment in trafficking companies, generations of monarchs were central to Britain’s slave trade

Padraic Colum’s death made front-page news in the New York Times in 1972, while F Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway feared his wife Mary’s rapier wit

Award doubles to €20,000 as Ireland’s oldest literary prize marks 50th anniversary

Join Martin Doyle at Dublin Book Festival 2026 for a conversation around his new book A Hosting, alongside featured author Kevin Barry and in conversation with Paula Shields

Message of murals transforming Derry is of a new, shared identity that goes beyond green, white and orange or red, white and blue

The author on his latest novel, The Newer World, his difficult relationship with his parents, and feeling out of place growing up as a Dublin Protestant

A literary editor of The Irish Times, and its chief critic for 35 years, Brian Fallon also founded the newspaper’s Weekend supplement

Books newsletter: a wrap of the latest news and preview of tomorrow’s pages

This masterclass will focus on the writing, editing and publishing of novels of creative literary fiction with Ronan Hession in Derry

Prize judge Wendy Erskine: ‘Now this is what I call a love story. Tomorrow is humane, adult and very affecting’

From 2020: A voice for working-class women and an icon for all kinds of women, Parton has maintained her star power throughout life phases and political cycles, Lauren Michele Jackson writes.

As a child in Dublin the the Ross O’Carroll-Kelly author was ‘heavily incentivised’ to lose his English accent

The Hero is an original short story by Abbie Spallen

Leitrim writer’s archive features words of praise from Seamus Heaney, Brian Friel and Colm Tóibín, while Claire Keegan and Anne Enright also speak of his influence

The fetishisation of the Troubles by Kneecap is part of the same normalisation

Chloe Moffat, 26, killed herself after disciplinary proceedings that coroner in Surrey found be to be flawed

In an internal memo, an executive at AI firm Anthropic wrote that ‘Project Panama is our effort to destructively scan all the books in the world’

With his lilting West Isles accent, fluent Gaelic and penchant for tweed trousers, Dr Scott Peake had perfected the role of the quintessential Scottish gentleman.

The 12 winning writers will pitch their unpublished debuts to publishers and agents in September

Martin and Roman’s Irish Road Trip is often good fun but does not overburden British viewers with knowledge, while a new Netflix show asks: ‘What if Ricky Gervais was a cat?’

Summer fiction: 221 Violet Punk is a new short story by Caragh Maxwell, author of Sugartown

Cultural connections – and a vision of a pedestrian-friendly city – leave a lasting impact

‘We can have billionaires or we can have democracy. We cannot have both,’ writes Gil Durán in his stunning new work

Books newsletter: the latest news and a preview of tomorrow’s pages

Anto O’Brien finds solace in art following the death of his life partner Diana Pendlebury in 2023

SCREENING MONDAY 17th AUGUST Paul Duane’s intimate portrait charts the unpredictable life of John Healy – award-winning author, internationally distinguished chess player and erstwhile alcoholic vagra...

The Frames’ frontman was the still-yet-chaotic centre of an indie-folk storm, whose job was to hold it all together

The Frames’ frontman was the still-yet-chaotic centre of an indie-folk storm, whose job was to hold it all together