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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The six-seven meme that has taken over the worldIn the Spotlight With roots in rap and basketball, the phrase has young people obsessed, and it could be here to stay
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Five takeaways from Plaid Cymru’s historic Caerphilly by-election winThe Explainer The ‘big beasts’ were ‘humbled’ but there was disappointment for second-placed Reform too
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A journey through Trinidad’s wild heartThe Week Recommends Experience the island’s natural wonders, from watching baby turtles hatch to visiting an ancient bat cave
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6 well-crafted log homesFeature Featuring a floor-to-ceiling rock fireplace in Montana and a Tulikivi stove in New York
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Dry skin, begone! 8 products to keep your skin supple while traveling.The Week Recommends Say goodbye to dry and hello to hydration
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Film reviews: A House of Dynamite, After the Hunt, and It Was Just an AccidentFeature A nuclear missile bears down on a U.S. city, a sexual misconduct allegation rocks an elite university campus, and a victim of government terror pursues vengeance
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Book reviews: ‘Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife’ and ‘Make Me Commissioner: I Know What’s Wrong With Baseball and How to Fix It’Feature Gertrude Stein’s untold story and Jane Leavy’s playbook on how to save baseball
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Rachel Ruysch: Nature Into ArtFeature Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, through Dec. 7
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Music reviews: Olivia Dean, Madi Diaz, and Hannah FrancesFeature “The Art of Loving,” “Fatal Optimist,” and “Nested in Tangles”
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Gilbert King’s 6 favorite books about the search for justiceFeature The journalist recommends works by Bryan Stevenson, David Grann, and more
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5 of the best kid-friendly scary moviesThe Week Recommends Hardcore horror is for grown-ups only, but light scares can be startling fun for the whole family
