Yvonne
Thanks to the lovely Francesca at Midas PR, I am in the enviable position of being able to share advance details with you, about two new books hitting the shelves in October, published by Connemara-based Doire Press.
A collection of short stories and an anthology of poetry, both inspired by the Covid-19 Pandemic.
Wishing both authors every success with their respective books.
LIBERTY TERRACE
Liberty Terrace features a bevvy of characters who reside in a fictional area of Cork City in the period 2016 to 2020.
The inhabitants of Liberty Terrace come and go, and their lives occasionally intersect in stories that are sometimes funny, sometimes dark, often both.
The cast of characters includes retired Garda Superintendent Deckie Google, a young homeless squatter, the mother of an autistic child working part-time as a Census Enumerator, the dysfunctional Callinan family, an ageing rock star, a trio of ladies who visit a faith healer, a philandering husband, as well as a surprising number of cats and dogs.
These stories shed light on how we lived before and during the Covid-19 pandemic, on what we care about and on what, if anything, we can truly count on.
MADELEINE D’ARCY
Madeleine D’arcy was born in Ireland. A former solicitor, she lived for a number of years in the UK, before returning to Cork City with her family
In 2010 she received a Hennessy X.O Literary Award for First Fiction as well as the overall Hennessy X.O Literary Award for New Irish Writer.
Her stories have been short-listed and commended in many competitions, including the William Trevor/Elizabeth Bowen Short Story Competition, Fish Short Story Prize, the Bridport Prize and the Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Competition.
Madeleine has been awarded bursaries by the Arts Council of Ireland and by Cork City Council.
She was a scholarship student on the inaugural MA in Creative Writing 2013-2014 in University College Cork. Waiting for the Bullet is Madeleine’s debut collection of short stories.
Visit Madeleine at her Website
Follow Madeleine on Twitter
SMUGGLERS IN THE UNDERGROUND HUG TRADE:
A JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR
Surprised by how few literary references exist for the Spanish ‘Flu pandemic of 1918/19, William Wall made a conscious decision to document the experience of ‘the strangest year we have lived’.
In a poetic journal, Wall captures the roller-coaster of emotions from the first terrible days in Italy to the highs and lows of the lockdown in Ireland, culminating in the frightening increase in numbers at Christmas 2020.
But this is not just a book about the plague: the author turns to nature, to love, to his beloved Cork coast and sea-swimming for solace.
There are many tender memories, moments of personal inspiration, humour and hopefulness—the whole suffused with an acute awareness of the historical context.
There have been other plagues and pandemics, the poems say, and we have survived: we will survive this too.
WILLIAM WALL
William Wall is the author of four novels, including This is the Country (Sceptre), longlisted for the Man Booker Prize; three collections of poetry; and one volume of short stories. He has won the Virginia Faulkner Award, The Sean O’Faoláin Prize, several Writer’s Week prizes and The Patrick Kavanagh Award.
He was shortlisted for the Young Minds Book Award, the Irish Book Awards, the Raymond Carver Award, the Hennessy Award and numerous others. His work has been translated into many languages, including Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Latvian, Serbian and Catalan.
In 2014 William was part of the Italo-Irish Literature Exchange, organised through The Irish Writers’ Centre, which toured Italy with readings in Italian and English. In March 2010 he was Writer in Residence at The Princess Grace Irish Library, Monaco.
He was a 2009 Fellow of The Liguria Centre for the Arts & Humanities.
William lives in Cork.
Visit William at his Website
‘Mailbox Monday’ is a gathering place for readers to share links to the books that came into their house during the last week.
This is a great way to plan out your reading week and see what others are currently reading as well, after all you never know where that next “must read” book will come from
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Both of these books look amazing, thank you for sharing information about them. The cover of Wall’s poetic journal is so eye-catching, it truly arrests you. I hope you enjoy both of them and that you have a lovely week 🙂
Juli @ A Universe in Words
I agree with you about the cover impact of William Wall’s poetry collection. He hasn’t added it to his official website yet, so I am still trying to track down whether or not it is simply great cover art, or is actually a piece of real art he has licenced for the cover, as I really wanted to know too!
I don’t read a lot of poetry, but this is the kind of book I would probably dip in and out of.
Thanks for taking the time to visit and comment and Happy Reading in the week ahead 🙂
I am very sure I would enjoy these two books, esp. the A JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR. 2019-2020 were bad, but 2021 for me personally is the worst in my life…I am trying to find some comfort having some good reads in future…I wish you a wonderful week ahead, Yvonne.
I’m so sorry that you are having such a hard time of things right now, I’m sure your reading and baking give you much solace though!
For me, although I don’t read a lot of poetry, picking a book up off the shelf and reading maybe just one poem, can calm me.
I’m always here if you need to chat about things, or just rant – I don’t mind!
My email address is on the contact page 🙂
Thank you so much, Yvonne. I sincerely appreciate it.
You are so welcome!
You never need to suffer alone 🙂
I was thinking I’m not sure I’m in a place quite yet where I want to read “covid books” but I think the descriptions have changed my mind in that regard. Thanks for telling us about them!
I do have a couple of Covid books lined up on my Kindle and scheduled in the next few weeks, but they are going to have to be good to keep me interested.
At the moment I seem to be inundated with requests for books about climate change and I’m not sure how many more of those I can cope with either! The news is full of the climate doom and gloom as it is, but unless the other main players like India, China and Australia sign up to take action too, anything we do can’t change the outcome – Everyone needs to act together!
Anyway, here’s to some happy reading for us both this week and it was great to chat with you 🙂
Not too sure it isn’t too early for me to be contemplating books featuring Covid. Of the two featured here it is Liberty Terrace that appeals to me as I like the sound of the characters. That said, poetry can be powerful so, whilst not a big fan of verse, I can see this being a dynamic collection.
‘Liberty Terrace’ would probably be my personal first choice too, even though I am only a recent convert to short story writing.
The poetry book is a good one to keep on the shelf and just select a poem from occasionally.
I see that Climate Emergency books are classified as ‘cli-fi’, so seeing how books about the pandemic are classified will be interesting, I haven’t been able to find anything as yet!
Thanks for stopping by and Happy Reading 🙂
Your books look good! I have read a couple of books that featured the Pandemic, and I liked feeling connected to those characters.
Thanks for sharing, and here are my WEEKLY UPDATES
I’m still not too sure about the sudden influx of pandemic disaster novels quite so soon, especially given that Covid is still very much with us, with thousands of new cases every day and hundreds of deaths. It all seems a little irreverent somehow, but perhaps that is me being over sensitive.
I am hoping that both of my featured books are more intimate snapshots of the strange time bubble we have all been living in, rather than some full-blown, vividly detailed expose!
I hope that all is well with you, hubbie and I are just waiting for our third booster shot now! 🙂
Both books sound very interesting. I hope you enjoy them.
I hope you’ll have a lovely week.
Yes! Very different with the same events viewed from two completely diverse perspectives.
Two totally different but equally stunning covers too!
Hope that all is well with you and Happy Reading 🙂
So nice to see a “Mailbox Monday” post again! I’m not sure either of these appeal to me at the moment (meaning they might at some point in the future), but I like seeing what books you’re getting. 😀
This is probably a ‘one off’ post I fear, as I have enough trouble keeping up with all the reviews I have in my schedule. This was a promotional favour for the PR company, as I work with them a lot on Blog Tours and Reviews
Memes are lovely to take part in, but they do require quite a lot of work, as they tend to generate more comments than review posts and I like to respond to each comment, as well as making reciprocal visits.
Stress levels have been a bit more under control of late and I am not keen to upset the balance again.
I am keen to read the short story collection and I really like the strong cover art.
Thanks for taking the time to check out the post, I appreciate your visit 🙂
Hello Yvonne…haven’t visited for a while.
I hope both of these books are good reads. I have not heard of either of them.
Have a great week.
Hi Elizabeth,
I haven’t taken part in any meme posts for some weeks now, as they were just becoming so stressful to manage. I so enjoyed receiving lots of visits and catching up with all my reading friends, but I simply couldn’t keep up with all the replies and return visits, and I just couldn’t bring myself not to reply to everyone who stopped by and took the trouble to comment.
This week is probably just a one-off post to say “thank you” to the PR company, who have been so lovely to work with on Blog Tours and Reviews.
Both books are by Irish authors, published by a local Irish publisher, and are due for release later in October.
I do keep up to date with your Goodreads page and ‘never say never’ with regards to MM and all the other lovely memes. Take Care 🙂
These both look interesting. Good to see you at MM. I hope you are well.
Happy Reading!
I guess that a real slew of pandemic based books are going to hit the shelves soon, along with all the climate emergency books, with which I am already inundated for review.
I am intrigued by the premise of ‘Liberty Terrace’ and that very arresting cover art. It will be good to get a perspective on the pandemic from another country, even though that is only one part of this storyline and I do enjoy books about people!
All is well here, thank you so much for asking, as I hope it is with you. Now that air travel between the US and UK is getting ready to re-open, we seriously considered just one more visit to Disney World next year, but I’m not sure that our heart is really in it any more, but never say never!
Have a great week and Happy Reading 🙂
Certainly a hot topic. Enjoy.
There are quite a few of those ‘hot topics’ around right now, I’m almost frightened to turn the news on these days!
I generally read for escapism, so I’m not sure how many quite such focussed books I am going to want to read!
Thanks for taking the time to stop by and I hope MM is treating you well 🙂