Happy new year!
Every year I begin January pledging to read more. I read a lot for work, but also because, well, I love reading. But I never quite feel I’m reading enough to keep up with the ever-growing to-read pile, the classics I still need to catch up on and the non-fiction that I need to tackle too. And let’s not start on keeping up with the newspapers and that New Yorker subscription…
So far this month I’ve read 4 novels and discovered the secret to that was: getting my arse off Instagram and actually putting in the reading hours. Who knew?! To help with the former, I downloaded the app Clearspace. It allows you to choose how many times a day and for how long (with a maximum of 10 minutes) you visit an app.
Now, three 10-minute slots for Instagram is the most I can do in a day. (I do make another one or two checks on my laptop, but it’s clunky and I don’t stay long.) You can add more than one app if you want to pay for Clearspace, but I mainly struggle with Instagram, so one suits me.
It has been gamechanging - I feel like my mind is free of a lot of detritus that it tends to pick up when I spend too much (ie more than 10 minutes) on social media. I’m not sure we talk about this enough, how much what you see on social media can clutter your mind, and how you can end up having things you’ve read or seen rattling around in your head.
Another factor is that I don’t have major caring responsibilities right now, which is probably the biggest factor of all when it comes to reading - that said, I interviewed three mums who are part of Bookstagram last year and their thoughts on the stereotypes around mums not reading were really cheering.
So, to kick off the year here are some mini reviews of a few books I’ve read since December.
Looking for a book about the impact of social media on Ireland? Might I suggest my bestselling and Irish Book Awards-nominated non-fiction book Social Capital? Order it from your favourite online store - or pick it up in your local bookshop.
Breakdown by Cathy Sweeney
I interviewed Cathy for the Sunday Times’ Culture magazine (the piece will be out this Sunday), and I was extremely excited to chat to her because I’m obsessed with this book. If you’re a fan of her short stories and her collection Modern Times, you’ll know they are daring and sometimes slightly odd; a few have a distinctly classic Russian short story feel to them, others are more Angela Carter-esque. She has such a distinctive voice.
Breakdown is a different prospect, with the voice feeling very much of the now. It’s told in the first person and is about a woman, aged 50, very middle class and living in Dublin, who leaves the house one day and doesn’t come back. It’s an examination of women’s lot in the Ireland of today, a deadpan excoriation of what’s expected of mothers and wives.
It’s also deeply, blackly funny, excellent on a sentence level and bound to drive some people mad and be beloved by others. It’s published on 18 January.
Hagstone by Sinéad Gleeson
I have to say before I start that Sinéad is a friend of mine, but I think anyone who’s familiar with her work (her essay collection Constellations, or her personal essays, edited books and journalism) knows that she’s a really fantastic writer. This novel is very eagerly awaited by anyone who loves her writing - it’s always exciting knowing that someone has a novel in them and is about to bring into the world.
Hagstone has a clever and quite unique plot: it’s about a woman named Nell who lives on a remote island, which is also home to a group of women called the Inions, who are a sort of commune who have retreated from society. We follow as Nell is asked to make art for them and finds herself drawn into their world.
This is a novel in thrall to creativity and art-making, and I was touched by the insight into Nell’s process and how the book prioritises both making art and the power of the imagination. I felt, reading it, that I had only really encountered this before in memoirs/personal essays (and the gorgeous Alison by Lizzy Stewart). I felt, as they say, very seen reading these parts (I think they apply to anyone who does anything creative).
Like Breakdown, layered into this is a look at women’s roles in Ireland and the need to escape or retreat from what’s expected of you. I loved how Nell is rebellious, full of spirit and emotion and has a great sense of her own body and its pleasures.
The prose is just gorgeous (I would kill for Sinéad’s gift with imagery and metaphor!). Fans of the folk horror will find a lot to enjoy as the book brings us to its delicious conclusion, but anyone who’s interested in women artists and the spookiness of remote islands will find loads here too. Congrats Sinéad! Published on 11 April.
Dead Lions and Slough House by Mick Herron
I’ve nurtured a deep love for the Apple TV+ series Slow Horses these last few years (and am secretly smug that I interviewed Jack Lowden in person on the Dunkirk press tour) and thought it was about time I read some of the novels the series is based on.
In the Christmas rush in Hodges Figgis, I picked up Slough House and Dead Lions, thinking these were book one and two. Reader, they were book 11 and book two. Oops. Thankfully, while the books are all set in the world of Slow Horses, the action in each one is self-contained and you really don’t have to work too hard to figure out what you missed. Plus, even though I knew the trajectory of Dead Lions as it’s covered in series two of Slow Horses, a fair bit had changed anyway from the novel.
Herron is a quick-witted and darkly funny writer, and that’s what lifted the book up for me when I found some elements of the plot confusing. He also creates gas characters, who might be f*ck ups but are delightfully so. If anything, the novels show what great casting decisions were made for the series - I simply can’t imagine anyone but those actors playing these characters. (Special shoutout to the Marcus Longridge fans - as much as I love the hapless River Cartwright, Marcus is brilliant.)
I’m not really well-read in the spy/thriller genre but for a relative newbie like me these were thoroughly moreish. (There were some weird comments about a woman’s weight in Dead Lions which I thought was really odd, though.) I’ll be reading more of these.
Minor Detail by Adania Shibli
This 2020 novel belatedly came to my attention when its Palestinian author Shibli was disinvited from the Frankfurt Book Fair. The book (published by Fitzcarraldo and translated into English by Elisabeth Jaquette) is set in Palestine, and has two parts to it: the first is set in 1949, the year after the Nakba, and centres on an Israeli commander in the Negev desert. In this section, a young Bedouin-Palestinian woman is raped and killed. In the second section, another young woman finds out about the killing 25 years later, and gets obsessed with how the woman’s death is a ‘minor detail’ in a long-running situation, a small footnote in conflict.
This is a deeply intense and eye-opening book, because of how the small (minor) details can seem insignificant on their own but when knitted together tell a disturbing story. In some ways the language, particularly in the first half, is a little clinical and descriptive, but this is a device that only serves to highlight the sorts of horrors that are about to unfold. An unforgettable novel.
Currently reading
I’m halfway through Long Island by Colm Tóibín (due out in May). It’s the sequel to Brooklyn, and I did NOT expect what this book would do with Eilis and Tony’s story… that’s all I’ll say for now (eyes emoji).
Here’s a roundup on international books due out in 2024 and an Irish 2024 round-up, both of which I wrote for my old stomping ground The Journal recently.
Music
A fave of mine, Bill Ryder-Jones, has a new album out called Iechyd Da, which made me return to his absolutely gorgeous 2015 record West Kirby County Primary. A low-key, intimate beaut.
Here’s a recent interview with him in the New Cue - and no, the press officer called Aoife isn’t me, I swear…