Let this reading pile inspire you …
Kathleen MacMahon is a former radio and television journalist with RTÉ. Her debut novel, This Is How it Ends, spent five weeks at the top of the bestseller lists in Ireland. Her third, Nothing But Blue Sky, was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2021. Her fifth novel, Other People’s Lives, a story about the decisions we make in a heartbeat, and their lifelong consequences, is out now.
“Danielle McLoughlin’s novella, Rituals, was published in April. I loved this tender, funny story of a civil servant on an enforced leave of absence after things took a strange turn at work. She and her student lodger are both gentle odd bods, trying to navigate a cruel world with mixed success.
“Claire Fuller was listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction for Unsettled Ground, a present-day Hansel and Gretel story of two siblings living on the margins of an English village. Her new novel, Hunger and Thirst, is a full-blown horror, but a highly literary one. It’s very creepy and a lot of fun.
“Jan Carson’s new novel, Few and Far Between, is a fictional flight of fancy based on a 1950s proposal to create a seventh county in Northern Ireland by draining Lough Neagh. I’ve always loved stories about the rise and fall of water levels – I’m fascinated by drowned forests and flooded valleys – so this one is for me.
“I’m also working my way through the Collected Stories of Nabokov and dazzled by each and every one. On audio, I’m listening to a beautiful reading of Amy Bloom’s novel, White Houses, about a love affair between the US First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and the reporter Lorena Hickock. Nobody does sensual like Amy Bloom. She is always a treat.”
Other People’s Lives by Kathleen MacMahon (Penguin Sandycove, €18.75).
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