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Taking place from the 14th to the 21st of October, Irish Book Week celebrates the extraordinary contribution that bookshops make to Irish culture, communities, and the economy. Ireland is internationally recognised as a country of books, and our bookshops play a crucial role in championing homegrown talent and putting great Irish books into the hands of readers. These cultural epicentres are places to discover new fictional worlds, a favourite childhood read, life-changing non-fiction, comforting cookbooks, and so much more. They are pockets of tranquillity where we can meet like-minded readers, beloved authors, and receive recommendations from talented and trustworthy booksellers.
This Irish Book Week, we’re celebrating Irish authors, publishers, books, and, of course, the many brilliant bookshops that are a wonderful part of our country and culture. You can also explore our longlist of this year’s An Post Bookshop of the Year here, as we hunt for this year's best bookshop.
As part of the bookish celebrations, Irish Book Week are getting readers talking about Irish books, Irish bookshops, and Irish writers with the #IrishBookADay prompts. We chatted with last year’s An Post Book of the Year Winner Sally Hayden to hear about her chosen books.
Next Irish Read?
Dirty Linen: The Troubles in My Home Place, Martin Doyle
Martin Doyle, Books Editor of The Irish Times, offers a personal, intimate history of the Troubles seen through the microcosm of a single rural parish, his own, part of both the Linen Triangle – heartland of the North’s defining industry – and the Murder Triangle – the Badlands devastated by paramilitary violence. He lifts the veil of silence drawn over the horrors of the past, recording in heartrending detail the terrible toll the conflict took – more than twenty violent deaths in a few square miles – and the long tail of trauma it has left behind. To those who might ask why you would want to reopen old wounds, the answer might be that some wounds have never been allowed to heal.
Last Irish Book You Read?
Ordinary Human Failings, Megan Nolan
When we look beyond the headlines, everyone has a story to tell. It's 1990 in London and Tom Hargreaves has it all: a burgeoning career as a reporter, fierce ambition and a brisk disregard for the 'peasants' - ordinary people, his readers, easy tabloid fodder. His star looks set to rise when he stumbles across a scoop: a dead child on a London estate, grieving parents loved across the neighbourhood, and the finger of suspicion pointing at one reclusive family of Irish immigrants and 'bad apples': the Greens.
At their heart sits Carmel: beautiful, other-worldly, broken, and once destined for a future beyond her circumstances until life - and love - got in her way. Crushed by failure and surrounded by disappointment, there's nowhere for her to go and no chance of escape. Now, with the police closing in on a suspect and the tabloids hunting their monster, she must confront the secrets and silences that have trapped her family for so many generations.
Favourite Irish Children’s Book of 2023?
Freya Harte is not a Puzzle, Méabh Collins
Things I will be in Irish college: * Friendly to everyone (agree with everything they say) * Easy-going * Nice (compliment everyone's clothes/ make-up)
Things I will NOT be: * Annoying (don't ask too many questions) * Embarrassing * Weird (no stupid jokes or comments)
Freya's always felt different, so when she learns she's autistic she doesn't want anyone to know. All she wants is to fit in. But does she really need to change herself or can she find friends who like her just the way she is?
Irish Author You’ve Discovered this Year?
Noel O'Regan, author of Though the Bodies Fall
Micheál Burns lives alone in his family's bungalow at the end of Kerry Head in Ireland. It is a picturesque place, but the cliffs have a darker side to them: for generations they have been a suicide black spot. Micheál's mother saw the saving of these lost souls - these visitors - as her spiritual duty, and now, in the wreckage of his life, Micheál finds himself continuing her work. When his sisters tell him that they want to sell the land, he must choose between his siblings and the visitors, a future or a past. From an exciting new voice in Irish fiction, a powerful novel set on an Irish clifftop - a story about duty, despair and the chance encounters upon which fate turns.
Irish Bookshops You’ve Enjoyed Shopping with in 2023?
Hodges Figgis, Dublin; Books Upstairs, Dublin; Dubray, Grafton Street; Bookstór, Kinsale; Tertulia, Westport; WHSmith, Dublin Airport... there are definitely many more!
Irish Book You’ll Be Gifting This Christmas?
I Don't Want To Talk About Home, Suad Aldarra
Growing up in conservative Saudi Arabia, Suad Aldarra felt stifled by the strictures placed on women. She yearned for the vibrant Syrian streets of her family's origin. When the opportunity arose to study at Damascus University, she jumped at the chance to move to a city she loved and to experience a degree of freedom she'd never known.
But when the war started, everything changed. Suddenly Suad was thrown into a world of relentless pressure desperately looking for a way out. Her degree in software engineering was the saving grace that allowed her to travel to Ireland on a working visa. Yet reaching safety came at a price ...
I Don't Want to Talk About Home is not a memoir about war and destruction. It's not about camps or boats. It's about the enduring love for a home that ceased to exist, building a life out of the rubble, and the parts of yourself you lose and find when integrating into a new world.
To celebrate Irish Book Week, make sure to visit your local bookshop and pick out some great new reads!