The Dublin-based writer of the acclaimed novels "Ghost Wall", "Summerwater" and "Names for the Sea" picks her favourite books. Her new book, the memoir "My Good Bright Wolf", is out now.
The Grasmere Journals
This been in my pantheon since I was a PhD student trying to reconcile my subversive respect for domestic skills with scholarly ambition. In a time and place where it seemed that baking and research were inimical, and that no one would take seriously the research of a woman who made jam, it proclaimed that kitchen work, sociability, art and scholarship could be interwoven as the stuff of a good life.
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A Room of One's Own
Virginia Woolf, 1929
Woolf seems to offer the opposite view, that without property and solitude there can be no writing, but it's much more radical. She returns to the body and its needs, insisting on the necessity of pleasure, of abundance rather than adequacy, and she's way before her time in describing the inseparability of patriarchy and white supremacy.
Ordinary Notes
Christina Sharpe, 2023
Sharpe's book is, among other things, "A Room of One's Own" for modern times, exploring the conditions in which we might practise decolonised, anti-racist art and scholarship. It's a work that invites return, reflection, rereading. I'm still near the beginning of my conversation with it.
All My Puny Sorrows
Miriam Toews, 2014
There are many novels I reread, but most of them are predictable. I ration my returns to Miriam Toews's "All My Puny Sorrows", a model of how to look darkness in the eyes and giggle. It's about a single mother, her friends, her suicidal sister and their mother. It's sad and smart and funny and I quote it at sad and smart and funny moments.
The Book of Delights
Ross Gay, 2019
I didn't read "The Book of Delights" for ages because I thought it would be sentimental. I was wrong. Each essay is a delicious little controlled explosion of joy, which is activism in a broken world.
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White House says admiral ordered potential war crimeSpeed Read The Trump administration claims Navy Vice Adm. Frank ‘Mitch’ Bradley ordered a follow-up strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat, not Pete Hegseth
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Political cartoons for December 2Cartoons Tuesday’s political cartoons include advent chocolates, Ali MAGA, and more
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Film reviews: ‘Hamnet,’ ‘Wake Up Dead Man’ and ‘Eternity’Feature Grief inspires Shakespeare’s greatest play, a flamboyant sleuth heads to church and a long-married couple faces a postmortem quandary
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May your loved ones eat, drink and be merry with these 9 edible Christmas giftsThe Week Recommends Let them eat babka (and cheese and licorice)
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We Did OK, Kid: Anthony Hopkins’ candid memoir is a ‘page-turner’The Week Recommends The 87-year-old recounts his journey from ‘hopeless’ student to Oscar-winning actor
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The Mushroom Tapes: a compelling deep dive into the trial that gripped AustraliaThe Week Recommends Acclaimed authors team up for a ‘sensitive and insightful’ examination of what led a seemingly ordinary woman to poison four people
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10 concert tours to see this winterThe Week Recommends Keep cozy this winter with a series of concerts from big-name artists
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6 gripping museum exhibitions to view this winterThe Week Recommends Discover the real Grandma Moses and Frida Kahlo
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Pull over for these one-of-a-kind gas stationsThe Week Recommends Fill ’er up next to highland cows and a giant soda bottle
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‘Chess’feature Imperial Theatre, New York City
