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Today former RTE producer and writer Julian Vignoles, know for his biographies of Rory Gallagher and David Thomson of Woodbrook fame, reviews Sinéad O'Connor's memoir Rememberings, described as 'inspiring, liberating, hilarious and fascinating'  by theIrish Times and  'beautifully observed ... lyrical, funny and anguished' by the Guardian.

Our Toaster Challenge guest is Victoria Kennefick whose debut collection Eat Or We Both Starve, was published recently by Carcanet.  Her collection draws readers into seemingly recognisable set-pieces - the family home, the shared meal, the rituals of historical occasions, desire - but gives them new shapes and uses them to explore what it is to live with the past  and not to be consumed by it.

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

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This morning's show features  interviews with two outstanding writers. First up is Louise Kennedy whose collection of stories The End of the World is a Cul de Sac has been widely praised. 'A dazzling, heartbreaking debut collection' said the Guardian while the Sunday Times said that 'Kennedy's voice, and her unforgiving gaze, are electric'.
Our Toaster Challenge guest is the fine poet Penelope Shuttle whose new collection, Lyonesse, is published this month by Bloodaxe. The submerged land of Lyonesse was once part of Cornwall, according to myth and the oral tradition, standing for a lost paradise in Arthurian legend, but for this poet, who has lived all her adult life in Cornwall, it's now an emblem of human frailty.
Her Toaster Challenge choice is Denise Levertov's still available Collected Earlier Poems 1940-1960.

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.
Other music:
'Undertow' and 'Wanderlust' by Scott Buckley | https://soundcloud.com/scottbuckley
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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Today we talk to Evelyn Conlon whose new collection of stories, Moving About the Place, has recently been published by Blackstaff Press. Brilliantly written, witty, and full of the sharp observation for which Conlon is well known, Moving About the Place brings together some of the best of her recent work, along with brand-new stories, including a novella, to show how borders, movement and history change and transform people’s lives.
Evelyn’s Toaster Challenge Choice is the classic Enormous Changes At the Last Minute by Grace Paley.
First up on the show  is James Harpur’s The Examined Life, a sequence of honest and compelling poems about his five years in a boy’s boarding school in the 1970s. We discuss his memorable account and listen to the poems he recorded specially for us.


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.
Other music:
Soft Interlude by Alexander Nakarada | https://www.serpentsoundstudios.com
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Feather by Ikson | https://youtube.com/ikson
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
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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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

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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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
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Undertow by Scott Buckley | https://soundcloud.com/scottbuckley
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.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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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

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 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. 

Support the show