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Today's show opens with a discussion of Zadie Smith's lockdown essays, Intimations; our Toaster Challenge guest is Caitriona Lally, author of the award-winning Eggshells, and we also feature the work of poet Michael Hartnett (1941-1999).

Thanks to filmmaker Pat Collins for permission to use audio excerpts from his film about Michael Hartnett 'A Necklace of Wrens' (1999). Poems quoted are by kind permission of the Estate of Michael Hartnett and The Gallery Press.

Toaster Challenge choice: Dorthe Nors, Mirror, Shoulder, Signal

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.

Art work 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. If you want to be alerted when a new episode is released follow the instructions here for iPhone or iPad. For Spotify notifications follow the instructions here.

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This week features a celebration of the work of Eugene McCabe, who died in August, with particular focus on his timeless novel Death and Nightingales. Our Toaster Challenge guest is poet and former Director of Poetry Ireland Joe Woods and we also discuss Scottish poet Kathleen Jamie’s Selected Poems.

Toaster Challenge choice: Raymond Carver, A New Path to the Waterfall.

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.

Art work 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. If you want to be alerted when a new episode is released follow the instructions here for iPhone or iPad. For Spotify notifications follow the instructions here.

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Today's show features Helen Dunmore's final novel Birdcage Walk and her poetry collection Inside the Wave.  Our Toaster Challenge guest is journalist and broadcaster Olivia O'Leary, and we also review Stanley Plumley's The Immortal Evening: A Legendary Dinner with Keats, Wordsworth and Lamb.

Toaster Challenge choice: Eibhear Walshe, Kate O'Brien: A Writing Life

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.

Art work 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. If you want to be alerted when a new episode is released follow the instructions here for iPhone or iPad. For Spotify notifications follow the instructions here.

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Today’s show features Deborah Levy’s Things I Don’t Want to Know, Flights by Olga Tocarczuk; the Toaster Challenge guest is poet and playwright Adam Wyeth. We also discuss Charles Simic’s latest collection of poems Come Closer and Listen and The Life of Images: Selected Prose.

Toaster Challenge choice: Clarice Lispector,Hour of the Star

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.

Art work 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. If you want to be alerted when a new episode is released follow the instructions here for iPhone or iPad. For Spotify notifications follow the instructions here.

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This morning's show features an excursion into the country in the company of a favourite novel of Enda's, J.L Carr's A Month in the Country. Toaster Challenge guest debut novelist Marianne Lee talks about the inspiration behind A Quiet Tide, recently published by New Island, and we travel, at least in our heads, to Sweden to explore the poetry of Lars Gustafsson, whose Selected Poems, translated by John Irons, are published by Bloodaxe Books.

Toaster Challenge choice: Olga Tokarczuk: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

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.

Art work 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. If you want to be alerted when a new episode is released follow the instructions here for iPhone or iPad. For Spotify notifications follow the instructions here.

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This morning we consider two books concerned with the arts of looking and seeing:
On Looking: a walker's guide to the art of observation by Alexandra Horowitz, and Ditch Vision: essays on poetry, nature and place by poet and critic Jeremy Hooker.
Our Toaster Challenge guest is poet John O’Donnell whose first collection of short stories Almost the Same Blue has recently been published by Doire Press. John's choice is John Banville's The Book of Evidence and the episode also features readings of poems by Jeremy Hooker from The Cut of the Light: Poems 1965-2005.

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.

Art work 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. If you want to be alerted when a new episode is released follow the instructions here for iPhone or iPad. For Spotify notifications follow the instructions here.

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This week we console ourselves by looking at books about people and places, our Toaster Challenge guest is Philip Davison whose novel Quiet City has recently been published by Liberties Press, and we delve into Julie O'Callaghan's new book of poetry Magnum Mysterium.

Other books mentioned:

Jan Morris, Among the Cities,
Alasdair Reid, Inside Out and Outside In
Jan Martel, The High Mountains of Portugal
Tove Jansson, The Summer Book
Gabriel Garcia Marques, Love in the Time of Cholera
Toaster Challenge choice: Nicholson Baker, A Box of Matches

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.

Art work 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. If you want to be alerted when a new episode is released follow the instructions here for iPhone or iPad. For Spotify notifications follow the instructions here.

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Today's episode begins with a look at the sadly postponed Strokestown Poetry Festival and celebrates the publication of the Strokestown Anthology. Our Toaster Challenge guest is Alice Lyons, author of the recently published Oona, and Peter Sirr chooses a poem by Francis Ponge.

Toaster Challenge Choice: Linda Norton, Wite Out

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.

Art work 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 on the appropriate button above. If you want to be alerted when a new episode is released follow the instructions here for iPhone or iPad. For Spotify notifications follow the instructions here.

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On this morning's show a mix of poetry and espionage, and what it's like to qualify as a solicitor and give up law on the same day. Enda Wyley and Peter Sirr discuss collections of short poems such as Short and Sweet: 101 Very Short Poems, edited by Simon Armitage and the newly published The Word Ark, a pocket-sized anthology of poems responding to our fellow creatures, great and small, published at a time when not only the animal kingdom but the world at large is beset by dangers on an unprecedented scale. It is, in the words of its editor Pat Boran, “An invitation to look more intently at the world beyond ourselves, an external balance to our inner turmoil.”

Today's Toaster Challenge guest is singer-songwriter, film maker and advertising man Nick Kelly.

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.

Art work 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 click on the appropriate button above. If you want to be alerted when a new episode is released follow the instructions here for iPhone or iPad. For Spotify notifications follow the instructions here.

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In this opening episode of Books for Breakfast Enda Wyley and Peter Sirr discuss Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell; author of the multiple prize winning The Narrow Land    Christine Dwyer Hickey takes on the Toaster Challenge (an uninterrupted 2 minutes to present a favourite book; today's choice is Apeirogon by Colum McCann) and Peter Sirr talks about the poetry of Pearse Hutchinson.

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.

Art work 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 click on the appropriate button above. If you want to be alerted when a new episode is released follow the instructions here for iPhone or iPad. For Spotify notifications follow the instructions here.

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