Tag Archives: The Irish Times

Briefly Noted

Briefly Noted | Building an Irish-indie Christmas – The Irish Times – Mon, Nov 21, 2011

November 23, 2011 – 9:16 am

A CAMPAIGN asking consumers to spend more in (possibly more expensive) independent retailers this festive season, as the Government prepares to give us all yet another hair shirt for Christmas,may seem rather quixotic so it is perhaps fitting it has been launched by a bookseller.

This tilt at windmills has been orchestrated by Bob Johnston, theowner of the Gutter Bookshop in Dublin’s Temple Bar who had what he calls “a mad, crazy idea” last weekend as he was sitting on the Dart going into work.

via Building an Irish-indie Christmas – The Irish Times – Mon, Nov 21, 2011.

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News

Mercier Rebrands McCaughren's Children's Classics

July 21, 2011 – 8:46 am

Mercier Press, the Cork based independent publisher, has reissued three of Tom McCaughren’s classic children’s books; The Legend of the Golden Key, The Legend of the Phantom Highwayman, The Legend of the Corrib King.

The books explore a series of mysterious cases and feature cousins, Tapser and Cowlick. Mercier acquired the titles when they purchased the Children’s Press as part of their acquisition of the Anvil Press in 2009.

Best know for his Run With The Wind series of books on foxes, Tom McCaughren is a former reporter for The Belfast Telegraph, The Irish Times and RTE.

Originally from Ballymena, Co. Antrim, he has written fifteen books altogether. He has won five awards for literature including The White Ravens from the International Youth Library in Munich, the Reading Association of Ireland Award and the Bisto/Children’s Book Trust Books of the Decade Award.

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News

McCann Wins IMPAC

June 16, 2011 – 8:38 am

Colum McCann has won the 2011 IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize for his novel Let The Great World Spin. The award, the richest in the book world, carries a €100,000 prize for the winner.

McCann was born in Ireland but has lived in the United States since the mid-1990s. He defeated nine other authors including Colm Tóibín and William Trevor to gain the prize.

His book had previously won the National Book Award in the United States in 2009.

There’s an excellent feature piece with Eileen Battersby in today’s Irish Times:

Books were always at hand. His father, Seán McCann, was the features editor at the Irish Press . “He would give me a book and say ‘here, have a look at this’. I was always reading, everything, Kerouac. It was great. Then I decided I would write the great Irish novel but I couldn’t. I wasn’t messed-up enough. I was this middle class boy from the Clonkeen Road and had had a happy childhood.”

Image Credit:

Colum McCann. European Graduate School, www.egs.edu/, Photograph by Hendrik Speck,www.hendrikspeck.com/, Source: www.flickr.com/photos/hendrikspeck/

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News

Poolbeg Advertises Bloodline Online

March 24, 2011 – 10:50 am

Poolbeg Press are running an online campaign for Brian O’Connor’s Bloodline.

The ads, running on Writing.ie, are combined with editorial content on the website including interviews and giveaways. It is designed to support a wider campaign for the title that includes serialization of the book in The Irish Times.

Bloodline is O’Connor’s first non-fiction title he previously published two non-fiction titles, Add A Zero and Kings Of The Saddle, with Poolbeg.

Writing.ie is the world’s first national writing resources website and is supported by the Arts Council whose technology grant has been invaluable in making the site possible.

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News

The Fitzpatrick Tapes ~ Tuesday Round Up

January 11, 2011 – 10:49 am

Today’s Irish Independent features a quote from Easons head of book buyer Maria Dickinson who says: ‘There has been huge demand for this book since it went on sale yesterday. Several Easons stores have had to re-order the title less than 24 hours after it went on sale.’ Read The Rest

The Belfast Telegraph focuses on the possibility that Cowen misled the Dail: ‘Taoiseach Brian Cowen repeatedly failed to tell the Dail that he was contacted by Anglo Irish Bank chairman Sean FitzPatrick about the share ownership crisis in the bank.’ Read The Rest

The Irish Times also focuses on the failure to disclose: It was not as if the Taoiseach had no opportunities to inform the public that he had spoken to Mr FitzPatrick not once, but twice. He had ample opportunity, in the Dáil and elsewhere, to inform the public of his interactions with the disgraced executive who personified Ireland’s banking calamity. And it was not as if Cowen was not asked the right question, as former taoiseach John Bruton once claimed to explain why he evaded giving a full explanation on a controversy. Read The Rest

The Bookseller features an article by IPN Editor, Eoin Purcell:  ’McLoughlin said that Fitzpatrick “didn’t and won’t get a cent” from Penguin Ireland for his interviews.’ Read The Rest

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News

The Fitzpatrick Tapes Monday Round Up

January 10, 2011 – 2:07 pm

A book based on a series of formal interviews given by Sean Fitzpatrick to Tom Lyons of the Sunday Times and co-written by Lyons and his Sunday Times Colleague Brian Carey has been ‘flying off the shelves’ according to the Publisher, Michael McLoughlin of Penguin Ireland.

McLoughlin also tweeted today that there were, ‘Lots of reorders this morning from Dublin bookshops.’

Yesterday we covered the story of how Penguin managed to bring the book to publication in a covert manner, with booksellers not knowing what the topic of the book was until copies arrived in store on Sunday morning.

The first to face questions was Brian Cowen who was revealed to have had two previously unknown contacts with the former Anglo Irish Bank Chief Executive and  Chairman:

RTÉ: (Sunday, Monday)
The Irish Times: (Sunday, Monday)

Fionnan Sheahan in the Irish Independent raised some concerns over the book:

it is believed the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) considered taking out an injunction against the new book in which Mr FitzPatrick gives his version of Anglo’s collapse.
There were concerns the book’s contents could jeopardise potential prosecutions against Anglo management. But the DPP’s office did not take any action and did not obtain a copy in advance of publication.
Penguin, the publishers of the book, ‘The FitzPatrick Tapes’ said it had had no contact from state authorities.

Irish Independent: (Monday)

But the book also raised questions for Penguin Ireland on Twitter when well-known communications advisor, Damien Mulley demanded to know if Sean Fitzpatrick would benefit from the book and if the publisher would contribute some of the proceeds to a charity.

McLoughlin responded on Twitter saying, ‘it’s not ‘Seanie’s book’. It’s Tom Lyons & Brian Carey’s. No, we won’t be ‘donating’ any proceeds from sales to anybody.’

The authors of the book today appeared on Newstalk, RTE radio and several other radio outlets to discuss the book and the process of interviewing Fitzpatrick.

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Books & Authors

Lara Marlowe On Sunshine 106.8FM

November 24, 2010 – 1:29 pm

Lara Marlowe was on Dublin’s Talking with Lynsey Dolan on Sunshine 106.8FM this week. The interview is below:

Lara Marlowe on Sunshine 106.8FM

Lara’s book, The Things I’ve Seen can be bought here.

Publishers Description

New and selected pieces by the renowned international journalist and foreign correspondent, including stories from the Middle East, the Balkans, France (where she lived for a total of seventeen years), and also from the US, where she is currently the Washington Correspondent for The Irish Times.

The Things I’ve Seen is the first book to feature the award-winning work of journalist and foreign correspondent Lara Marlowe. From her beginnings as a reporter for the Financial Times, to her work for TIME Magazine and her most recent assignments with The Irish Times in Paris and Washington, this selection of Lara’s best reporting is full of the insight and reflection we have come to expect from the veteran reporter. Featuring a lengthy introduction on the nature of the correspondent’s work and charting her own career, this debut publication includes coverage of wars in Lebanon, former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine and Iraq.

Lara has covered every major conflict of the past three decades. She lived for eight years in Beirut, where she reported for the Financial Times and TIME Magazine. Irish readers are most familiar with the thirteen years she spent as the Paris-based correspondent for The Irish Times. The Things I’ve Seen features some of her best writing from that posting, including a lively portrait of Carla Bruni, whom she met in the singer and first lady’s private Paris residence.

The book covers the Obama administration’s first 18 months, the earthquake in Haiti and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

|Image Credit|

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Some rights reserved by noodlepie

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Books & Authors

Christmas Preview 2010 | Politics & Current Affairs

November 8, 2010 – 11:47 am

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Perhaps not the most thrilling of titles in the mix this year, Gay Mitchell’s By Dáil Account: Auditing of Government, Past, Present and Future, published by the IPA, is a book worth reading in-depth, contemplating and hoping that some of the author’s recommendations are adopted.

Likewise John McGuinness And Naoise Nunn’s book, The House Always Wins: Time To Turn The Tables offers a scathing analysis from the inside of Leinster House and some possible remedies for the situation we find ourselves in.

Enough Is Enough by Irish Times columnist Fintan O’Toole and published by Faber & Faber is sure to garner both praise and attention and joins the growing ranks of books declaring the Irish State pretty much broken and in need of reform.

In the same vein, an already released, but not to be ignored title is 2016 A New Proclamation For A New Generation by Gerard O’Neill and published by Mercier Press. Gerard, an economist who writes the excellent Turbulence Ahead blog is also a director of Amárach Research.

Just in case you’ve not quite had your fill of builders, bankers and developers, Simon Kelly’s Breakfast with Anglo from Penguin Ireland is on the shelves now and offers an inside account of how things became so crazy in the development business.

Four Courts Press bring something beyond the financial crisis and look to nature for their Deluge: Ireland’s weather disasters, 2009-2010 by Kieran Hickey which examines the extreme Irish weather of winter 2009-2010.

Finally, a big annual seller in Ireland is The Irish Times Book of the Year 2010, edited by Peter Murtagh and published by Gill & Mcmillan and 2010 is unlikely to be any different.

The Books

By Dáil Account: Auditing of Government, Past, Present and Future | Gay Mitchell
HB | €25.00 | IPA | 9781904541905
The House Always Wins: Time To Turn The Tables |
PB | €16.99 | Gill & Macmillan | 9780717147892
Enough Is Enough | Fintan O’Toole
PB | €14.99 | Faber & Faber | 9780571270088
2016 A New Proclamation For A New Generation | Gerard O’Neill
HB | €14.99 | Mercier Press | 9781856356909
Breakfast with Anglo | Simon Kelly
PB | €16.99 | Penguin Ireland | 9781844882502
Deluge: Ireland’s weather disasters, 2009-2010 | Kieran Hickey
PB | €14.95 | Four Courts Press | 9781846822711
The Irish Times Book of the Year 2010 | Edited by Peter Murtagh
HB | €26.99 | Gill & Mcmillan | 9780717147885

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Quick Links

Quick Link | Why Irish writers don't grow out of adolescence – The Irish Times

November 7, 2010 – 6:37 pm

But this absence is not accidental. It derives from something Frank O’Connor identified: the absence of a fixed society. Irish society has remained, through all its radical changes, so porous and fluid that it has been impossible to frame a big, stable public narrative around it. It is striking that the only epic novelist we have at the moment, Joseph O’Connor, has spun his epics not from Irish society but from the act and consequences of leaving it. The emigration story – mobile, shifting, laden with reinventions – is our equivalent of the English novel of society.

In this sense, to look at it more positively, the use of child and adolescent protagonists can be seen as a conscious strategy. It is one way of telling stories without having to rely on large public narratives. The most basic plot of all – the move from innocence to experience – is the old reliable to which Irish writers return. But precisely because it is so old, it forces them to continually reshape it.

via Why Irish writers don’t grow out of adolescence – The Irish Times – Sat, Nov 06, 2010.

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Books & Authors

Christmas Preview 2010 | Food & Drink

October 14, 2010 – 11:16 am

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The Best Of Food & Drink Titles For Christmas 2010

At first I thought 2010 was not going to yield much by way of food & drink books but in fact the haul this year is very impressive.

In some ways you have to hand it to Gill & Macmillan. They’ve consistently published quality cookbooks unlike many trade house in Ireland whose commitment to the space have been inconstant and lackluste. The exception has been UCC Press’ Atrium imprint which has some of the finest cookbooks published in Ireland’s recent past on their very impressive list.

This year’s offerings from G&M are Itsa Cookbook by Domini Kemp, Irish Times food writer and founder of the Itsa Bagel (where I stopped buying bagels once they stopped shipping H&H bagels in from the states! A sad change of menu). The book offers over 100 recipes of everyday (or popular) recipes.

My choice of G&M’s offering is however definitely their second book, Catherine Fulvio’s, Catherine’s Italian Kitchen. The book accompanies the RTÉ series of the same name and features many of the recipes seen there. I’ve some minor quibbles with the colour usage in the texts of recipes, but those are ones I can get over because the rest of the book is both attractively designed and filled with manageable recipes.

If I was to highlight the inevitable Christmas top seller in this category it would for certain be Rachel Allen’s latest, Entertaining At Home, published by HarperCollins and sure to score very big this christmas. In fact I’d wager her only real competition for the top spot comes from the newest Clodagh McKenna cookbook, Homemade which is published by the excellent KyleCathie (who were responsible for last year’s exceptional tome by Darina Allen, The Forgotten Skills of Cooking). McKenna has form and with the skill of KyleCathie behind her, this is sure to be a gem.

Two other books deserve a mention in this space, both because they have something different and because they are published by interesting houses. Liberties Press are bring Tom Doorley’s Eating For Ireland to bookshelves in an attractively covered and decently priced package looking at iconic Irish foods like Tayto, Red Lemonade and Fig Rolls.

Equally fascinating and in a gorgeous hardcover is An Irish Butcher Shop by Pat Whelan published by Collins Press. A meat eaters delight but also informed by sensible, sustainable and good quality farming, slaughtering and butchering, this is a book that challenges the mass produced food culture and offers something more than just recipes.

Which leaves us with what I’d call the dark horses. Judi Curtain’s Alice & Megan’s Cookbook published by O’Brien Press offers something few cookbooks do in Ireland, a brand from the book world trying to shift genres. I hope it works, it has promise and is a fun concept.

Christmas with Amanda Brunker & The Blue Haven Food Company: Recipes & Tips for the Perfect Christmas also screams celebrity, but bestselling author celebrity. If Mckenna fails to knock Allen from her bestselling throne, Brunker could sneak in there with this festive feast book.

Finally I though I’d mention here the Extra Credit Reading which technically is not a food & drink title and probably, properly belongs in the memoir biography section. I’ll have no truck with that, foodies will enjoy this more than memoir readers and historians I’d wager. It’s Conrad Gallagher’s, Back On The Menu, a tale of highs lows and cheffing published by A&A Farmer.

The Books

Itsa Cookbook Domini Kemp
PB | €19.99 | Gill & Macmillan | 978071747427
Catherine’s Italian Kitchen – Catherine Fulvio
PB | €19.99 | Gill & Macmillan | 9780717148066
Entertaining At Home | Rachel Allen
HB | €19.99 | HarperCollins | 9780007309030
Homemade | Clodagh McKenna
PB | €21.99 | KyleCathie | 9781856269582
Eating for Ireland | Tom Doorley
PB | €14.99 | Liberties Press | 9781907593055
An Irish Butcher Shop | Pat Whelan
HB | €25.00 | Collins Press | 9781848890596
Alice & Megan’s Cookbook | Judi Curtin
PB | €9.99 | O’Brien Press | 9781847172150
Christmas with Amanda Brunker | Amand Brunker & The Blue Haven Food Company
PB | €16.95 | The Blue Haven Food Company | 9780956673800
Back on the Menu | Conrad Gallagher
PB | €16.99 | A&A Farmer | 9781906353254

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