Saying bye-bye is never easy. Sometimes – as with Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp – you just know it’s time to stop.
I STAYED in one of Francis Ford Coppola’s homes for a couple of nights. True story.
DRY January in the publishing world, a time of relative famine. Not many books come out in the first weeks of the year so here’s one I’m late to; you don’t want to pass on it.
WHAT better way to start the year than countering delusional notions of optimism?
YOU’RE stuffed. Go on, admit it, you’ve eaten too much. You couldn’t face another morsel, not even an After Eight, not even a tiny wah-fer thin mint, just in case your abdomen explodes. Spontaneous dehiscence – not the best of starts to 2024. A brief fast is in order.
A CURATE’S egg – what is that, exactly? Is it the one your granny sucks? You know, the egg she’s forever being taught about, straw in hand. No, that can’t be right – she gets them from Tesco, not the local vicar.
HATCHET Jobs. That was the title of a 2004 collection of bad reviews by the American writer Dale Peck.
TRUE confession. I was 13 when I first came across a book by JG Ballard.
IT’S not often you think an art show should be mandatory viewing for Scotland’s creatives but the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s Self-Determination: A Global Perspective is one such.
SEEING as it just won the Booker Prize in the immediate aftermath of Dublin’s recent riots – and whilst I’m currently in the city – it seems opportune to talk about Paul Lynch’s new novel.
