Books for Breakfast (Ireland)

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Where did Dublin's uber-toffs live in the eighteenth century? Melanie Hayes drops in to talk about The Best Address in Town, Henrietta Street, Dublin and Its First Residents, 1720-1780, published by Four Courts Press. Our Toaster Challenge guest is Moya Cannon, whose Collected Poems was recently published by Carcanet, featuring more than three decades of fine work. Moya's Toaster Challenge choice is the classic The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd. Bring them with you on your morning walk!

Intro/outro music: Colm Mac Con Iomaire, ‘Thou Shalt Not Carry’ from The Hare’s Corner, 2008, with thanks to Colm for permission to use it.
Link music: Green Fields ©Scott Holmes Music https://www.scottholmesmusic.com

Artwork by Freya Sirr

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We're looking eastward toward today, with Toaster Challenge guest poet Justin Quinn who joins us from Prague, and we review the latest collection of stories from Bucharest based Philip Ó Ceallaigh. Justin's latest collection Shallow Seas was published by Gallery Press late last year; Philip's collection, Trouble, will be published by The Stinging Fly in May but is available for pre-order.

Today's Toaster Challenge choice is Edith Templeton's Living on Yesterday. Templeton was born Edith Passerová in Prague in 1916, to wealthy Bohemian parents  and published a number of novels in English.

Intro/outro music: Colm Mac Con Iomaire, ‘Thou Shalt Not Carry’ from The Hare’s Corner, 2008, with thanks to Colm for permission to use it.
Wanderlust by Scott Buckley | https://soundcloud.com/scottbuckley
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
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https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Undertow by Scott Buckley | https://soundcloud.com/scottbuckley
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Artwork by Freya Sirr

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This waning moon
         is pitiless, as dawn
swiftly follows and we
       must separate –
such heartbreak!
–Mibu No Tadamine

Today's show features James Hadley and Nell Regan talking about their translations of Japanese classical poetry for A Gap in the Clouds published by Dedalus Press. And we travel all the way to Melbourne for an interview with Australian poet Grant Caldwell whose Blue Balloon is a collection of his  best haiku and senryu poems spanning several decades. So bring these brilliant tanka, haiku and senryu with you on your morning walk ....

Intro/outro music: Colm Mac Con Iomaire, ‘Thou Shalt Not Carry’ from The Hare’s Corner, 2008, with thanks to Colm for permission to use it.
Yugen by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Alone, Purple Planet Music, https://www.purple-planet.com/

Artwork by Freya Sirr

To subscribe to Books for Breakfast go to your podcast provider of choice (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google etc) and search for the podcast then hit subscribe or follow, or simply click the appropriate button above. 

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Welcome to the audio edition of the special Books for Breakfast video  podcast for Mountains to Sea dlr Books Festival.  We were delighted to be the opening event for the festival, with two writers and  two Toaster Challenges. Our first  guest was  Laura McKenna, whose new, ambitious and epic novel Words to Shape My Name  has just been published by New Island. Inspired by true events, this outstanding story of failure hope and resilience traverses continents and two centuries and has at its core the unbreakable bond between the Irish rebel Lord Edward Fitzgerald and his manservant. Laura was followed by Conor O'Callaghan whose much-anticipated second novel, We Are Not In The World, about a man in the aftermath of a painful love affair driving a haulage lorry from England to France with his twenty something daughter, has just been published by Doubleday.

Laura's Toaster Challenge choice was André Brink's A Dry White Season, while Conor chose Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

Intro/outro music: Colm Mac Con Iomaire, ‘Thou Shalt Not Carry’ from The Hare’s Corner, 2008, with thanks to Colm for permission to use it.
Video podcast intro music was 'Homage to  Brian Keenan' by Fintan Vallely from Merrijig Creek

Artwork by Freya Sirr

To subscribe to Books for Breakfast go to your podcast provider of choice (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google etc) and search for the podcast then hit subscribe or follow, or simply click the appropriate button above. 

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Welcome to the 25th episode of Books for Breakfast! On today’s show we review Apocalypse: An Anthology, edited by James Keery, the first anthology of Apocalyptic or neoromantic poetry since the 1940s and including more than 200 poets. Our Toaster Challenge guest is Una Mannion whose novel A Crooked Tree has just been published by Faber to considerable acclaim. Una’s Toaster Challenge choice is Louise Kennedy’s short story collection The End of the World Is A Cul-de-Sac. So put the coffee on and enjoy!

Intro/outro music: Colm Mac Con Iomaire, ‘Thou Shalt Not Carry’ from The Hare’s Corner, 2008, with thanks to Colm for permission to use it.
Link music: Green Fields ©Scott Holmes Music https://www.scottholmesmusic.com

Artwork by Freya Sirr

To subscribe to Books for Breakfast go to your podcast provider of choice (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google etc) and search for the podcast then hit subscribe or follow, or simply click the appropriate button above. 

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Today we look at Shirley Hazzard's The Transit of Venus, often considered her most brilliant novel,  and poet Peter Robinson's investigation of the relationships between poets, poetry and money from Chaucer to the the present in Poetry and Money. Our Toaster Challenge guest is Leeanne Quinn whose new poetry collection Some Lives  has recently been published by Dedalus. Leeanne’s Toaster Challenge choice is Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets  by Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich,  described by the New York Times as 'A symphonic oral history about the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a new Russia'.

Intro/outro music: Colm Mac Con Iomaire, ‘Thou Shalt Not Carry’ from The Hare’s Corner, 2008, with thanks to Colm for permission to use it.
Link music: Alone, Purple Planet Music, https://www.purple-planet.com/
and Green Fields ©Scott Holmes Music https://www.scottholmesmusic.com

Artwork by Freya Sirr

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This week we begin by looking at Days of Clear Light, a festschrift in honour of Salmon Press founder Jessie Lendennie to celebrate 40 years of the poetry press. Peter reflects on a favourite book, Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space, and our Toaster Challenge guest is actor Cathy Belton, fresh from her performance in the Landmark Productions online version of Mark O’Rowe’s The Approach.
Cathy’ s Toaster Challenge choice is The Great Gatsby   by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Intro/outro music: Colm Mac Con Iomaire, ‘Thou Shalt Not Carry’ from The Hare’s Corner, 2008, with thanks to Colm for permission to use it.
Link music: Alone, Purple Planet Music, https://www.purple-planet.com/


Artwork by Freya Sirr

To subscribe to Books for Breakfast go to your podcast provider of choice (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google etc) and search for the podcast then hit subscribe or follow, or simply click the appropriate button above. 

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In this episode we look at new and recent poetry collections, which we list below.  And our Toaster Challenge guest is Michael O’Loughlin whose new book of poetry and prose, Liberty Hall, will be published by New Island in April. Michael goes in search of lost gods with his Toaster Challenge choice, Roberto Calasso's  Literature and the Gods.

Here's a list of poetry books mentioned in the episode.

Maurice Scully, Play Book
Justin Quinn, Shallow Seas
Grace Wilentz, The Limit of Light
Victoria Kennefick, Eat Or We Both Starve (Due Mar 2021)
Doireann Ní Ghríofa,  To Star the Dark
Moya Cannon, Collected Poems (Due this year)
Jessamine O’Connor, Silver Spoon
Poems from Pandemia, edited by Patrick Cotter
Patrick Cotter, Sonic White Poise
Greg Delanty, No More Time
Jeffrey Wainright, As Best We Can
Thomas A. Clark, A Threadbare Coat: Selected Poems
Apocalypse An Anthology edited  by James Keery,

Jean O’ Brien read her poem ‘Hotter Stars Burn Blue’ from Glimmering Girl, her forthcoming collection .

Intro/outro music: Colm Mac Con Iomaire, ‘Thou Shalt Not Carry’ from The Hare’s Corner, 2008, with thanks to Colm for permission to use it.


Artwork by Freya Sirr

To subscribe to Books for Breakfast go to your podcast provider of choice (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google etc) and search for the podcast then hit subscribe or follow, or simply click the appropriate button above. 

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Welcome to Books for Breakfast in 2021! We begin the year with a look at some noteworthy fiction from new and familiar writers. Books mentioned are:

The Art of Falling  by Danielle McLaughlin
A Crooked Tree  by Una Mannion
Words to Shape My Name  by Laura McKenna
Pure Gold  by John Patrick McHugh
Snowflake  by Louise Nealon
We Are Not in the World  by Conor O’Callaghan
The Death of Francis Bacon  by Max Porter
The Dark Room  by Sam Blake
Life Sentences by Billy O’Callaghan
Nora: A Love Story of Nora and James Joyce  by Nuala O’Connor
White City  by Kevin Power
A Shock  by Keith Ridgway
Weirdo  by Zadie Smith and Nick Laird

Also mentioned was RTE’s Spoken Stories, Independence,  a collection of 12 stories where authors write about what Independence means to them.

Today's Toaster Challenge Guest is Philip Coleman, Fellow of Trinity College Dublin and co -editor of  The Selected Letters of John Berryman.  We feature a rare recording of John Berryman reading from the Dream Songs and discuss Berryman's life, work and letters. Philip's Toaster Challenge is the groundbreaking new anthology, African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle edited by Kevin Young.

Intro/outro music: Colm Mac Con Iomaire, ‘Thou Shalt Not Carry’ from The Hare’s Corner, 2008, with thanks to Colm for permission to use it.

Artwork by Freya Sirr

To subscribe to Books for Breakfast go to your podcast provider of choice (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google etc) and search for the podcast then hit subscribe or follow, or simply click the appropriate button above. 

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This is our bumper Christmas episode, featuring two Toaster Challenges with Tara Bergin and Paula Meehan respectively. Paula also discusses  her recently published As If By Magic: Selected Poems. Tara's Toaster Challenge Choice is Fernando Pesssoa's The Book of Disquiet,translated by Margaret Jull Costa, while Paula chooses  More than concrete blocks: vol. II, 1940–72: Dublin city's twentieth-century buildings and their stories.

Tara also reads  a poem by Anne Carson and we features some  books we enjoyed this year: Eiléan Ní Chuilleanéain's Collected Poems, the new Bloodaxe anthology Staying Human edited by Neil Astley and Donal Ryan's novel Strange Flowers.
 
The show also features a Christmas poem by James Harpur, and poems from recently published collections Revolutions of Humming Things  by Aoife Reilly, Fox Trousers by Eithne Hand, and Street Light Amber by Noel Duffy.

Intro/outro music: Colm Mac Con Iomaire, ‘Thou Shalt Not Carry’ from The Hare’s Corner, 2008, with thanks to Colm for permission to use it.

Song for Better Times by Martijn de Boer (NiGiD) (c) copyright 2014 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial  (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/NiGiD/47949 Ft: smilingcynic

Artwork by Freya Sirr

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