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Sunday 28 May 2023 Dublin: 15°C

# Literature

All time
# Come to Life
'Wearable' book lets you experience characters' emotions while reading
The book and wearable vest uses sensors and can trigger feedback based on the protagonist’s emotional or physical state.
# what to watch
Here's what you'll be reading, watching and listening to in 2014
Looking for new books, music, films and TV shows this year? We’ve got you covered.
Voices
Extract: Colm McCann on Dublin, Ulysses and friendship
“The book that I return to, when I return to Ireland, is always Ulysses… Death takes away a lot of things, but it can’t ever take away our stories.”
# congrats are in order
John Banville to receive Lifetime Achievement Award at Irish Book Awards
The Booker Prize winner will join the ranks of previous winners John McGahern, Seamus Heaney and Edna O’Brien.
# Books
Roddy Doyle, Eamon Dunphy and Claudia Carroll among book of the year nominees
The Bord Gais Energy Irish Book Awards nominations feature a number of recognisable names.
# Literature
Irish author Colum McCann’s moving ode to Robbie Keane
The Dubliner’s work featured on the latest episode of MLS Insider.
# Nobel Prize
Alice Munro declines Nobel awards invite due to poor health
The winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature is due to pick up a prize of US $1.2 million.
# Winning
Eleanor Catton becomes the youngest ever winner of the Booker Prize
The 28-year-old New Zealander won the fiction award for her 832-page murder mystery The Luminaries.
# Nobel Prize
Canadian Alice Munro wins Nobel Prize, doesn't answer her phone
The 82-year-old Canadian has become just the 13th woman to win the prize in 112 years.
# RIP
Author Tom Clancy dies aged 66
The bestselling author and creator of the Jack Ryan character died at a hospital in Baltimore last night.
# Books
Dublin: One City One Book choice for 2014 is revealed...
This year’s choice follows Strumpet City, which was 2013′s book.
# Capital
Literary history of Dublin brought to life with new Storymap app
The map was officially launched yesterday evening, and includes poets and writers both new and well-known.
# Seamus Heaney
In pictures: The funeral of Seamus Heaney
Heaney, a Derry native, had called Dublin his home for the past number of decades.
# RIP
The life and times of Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney in pictures
Remembering the life of Seamus Heaney in pictures.
# RIP
Poet Seamus Heaney passes away aged 74
The Nobel laureate recently suffered from ill health, and was reported have collapsed earlier this week.
# the catcher in the rye
JD Salinger may publish five more books despite his death in 2010
The reclusive author of ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ last published in 1965 but a documentary has claimed he left detailed instructions for his estate to publish five more books between 2015 and 2020.
Voices
Column: To be a successful writer nowadays, you have to embrace social media
Writers from the days of print-only publications are still running to catch up with digital revolution, which has levelled the playing field and created almost-boundless opportunities for those with ambition, writes Stephen Downes.
# i got chills
Truly terrifying - horror series Goosebumps turns 21 this year
Does that mean we’re old? SCREAM.
# Man Booker Prize
Three Irish authors make Man Booker Prize longlist
This year’s exciting longlist features 13 authors from across the world – including three Irish writers.
# Sold
Beckett manuscript sells for €1.1 million
The 800 page working manuscript is of the Irish playwright Samuel Beckett’s first major novel ‘Murphy’.
# Literature
Kevin Barry’s City of Bohane wins the prestigious IMPAC DUBLIN Literary Award
Kevin Barry is the third Irish author to win the coveted €100,000 literary prize, taking up good company with previous winners Colm Tóibín and Colum McCann
# Samuel Beckett
Original manuscript of Samuel Beckett's first novel for sale
The handwritten rough draft of the modernist writer’s first novel – described as “one of the most important 20th century working manuscripts” – is expected to fetch up to €1.4 million.
# IMPAC
Ireland's Kevin Barry up for €100k literary award
Other nominees include Michel Houellebecq, Haruki Murakami and Andrew Miller.
# Books
Author Iain Banks has late stage cancer, says he has less than a year to live
The Scottish novelist said that he did not expect to live beyond a year.
Voices
Column: Why Irish ‘chick lit’ is the true barometer of our time
Following in the footsteps of Maeve Binchy, Irish female authors are capturing what really matters to people today, writes novelist Michelle Jackson.
# get writin'
Want to be a writer? New programme urges people to put pen to paper
Three successful Irish authors will offer tips to budding writers through YouTube videos as part of the new National Emerging Writer Programme.
# gentle persuasion
Irish ads of yore that we don't mind at all
There are no ads on RTÉ today… but if there were, we wouldn’t be charmed if they were like these ones from the turn of the 19th century.
# Not Ok
8 of the worst sex scenes you'll read this year
The nominees for the 2012 Bad Sex Awards have been announced… Brace yourself.
# Books
Eight Irish writers on longlist for Impac book award
Let’s not get too excited though – there’s 154 books in total on the longlist for the world’s most valuable literary prize.
# Winning
Hilary Mantel wins Booker Prize for second time
Hilary Mantel won the Booker Prize for her book Bring Up the Bodies, beating off competition from Will Self.
# Pop quiz
Can you identify these Irish literary quotations?
Go on, give it a go…
# need to know
The Evening Fix... now with added Christopher Walken
Here’s the things we learned, shared and loved today.
# Nobel
Mo Yan of China wins Nobel Literature Prize
China’s Mo Yan has won the Nobel Literature Prize.
# Shakeswho?
One third of British children have never heard of Shakespeare - survey
The survey also found that 5 per cent of people aged 18 to 34 believe that the playwright’s most famous work is Cinderella…
Voices
Orla Tinsley: Honesty about death and purpose in life
The Seamus Heaney poem ‘Mid-term Break’ always resonated with cystic fibrosis rights campaigner Orla Tinsley – and made her realise that life, though fragile, can be “calculated and powerful”.
# TV
Gabriel Byrne to play lead in TV adaptation of John Banville crime series
Banville said Byrne is the “perfect” choice to star in the series – which he penned under the pseudonym Benjamin Black.
# Joyce Tower
Joyce Tower set to reopen thanks to volunteer support
Staffing issues at Fáilte Ireland meant that the James Joyce site closed this summer.
# Your shout
Open thread: What Maeve Binchy book do you recommend?
Readers of the late, great Irish author have been reminiscing on the Binchy novel that touched them – which one would you give to a friend who had never read her work?
# Literature
No Irish need apply: Man Booker long list revealed
As usual, the talk is more about who’s not in rather than who is.
Voices
Column: Why I want to give a book to every child born in Ireland
Children’s Laureate Niamh Sharkey writes for TheJournal.ie about why reading is so important – and the reason she loves Dr Seuss.