Bibliofemme Bookclub An Irish Bookclub

Although Nicholas Sparks is a familiar name, I had never read anything by him until very recently. Well known for his works of fiction, which include The Notebook, A Walk to Remember and Message in a Bottle, my first encounter with Sparks was actually Three Weeks with my Brother, a memoir that he penned with his brother Micah’s assistance.

True

read more

Anthony Capella’s first book, The Food of Love – a modern update of the Cyrano de Bergerac story, with food in place of poetry – was a mouth-watering romp through the cuisine of Italy with a different dish on every page. His second novel, The Wedding Officer, is set in the more sombre and rationed times of World War II but Capella

read more

Adrian White’s first novel, An Accident Waiting to Happen, was published in 2004, reviewed and enjoyed by a fellow Femme. Therefore, it was with a certain eagerness that I started this book – I was not disappointed.

A phone call out of the blue to Kate, our main protagonist, brings a man she would prefer to forget back into her life. He

read more

Having read and enjoyed Ethan Hawke’s debut novel, The Hottest State, it was, of course, my interest in his published oeuvre that drew me to the reading of his new book, Ash Wednesday, at the Project in Dublin a couple of years ago. Well, that and the power of celebrity. It’s not often that you get an international actor at your questioning

read more

A book-within-a-book – also called The History of Love – links elderly Jewish man Leo Gursky and fellow New Yorker, 14-year-old Alma Singer.

Having survived World War II in Poland, Leo has a fear of dying unnoticed and is constantly, albeit quietly, seeking attention. Alma, who lost her father when she was seven, is a precocious child

read more

Donna Tartt burst upon the literary scene in 1992 with her debut novel The Secret History. Rather than pander to her audience with an immediate follow-up, her second book – The Little Friend – didn’t make it to the bookshops until 2002. It was worth the wait.

The Little Friend is a very different creature to its murderous academic

read more

Originally from Manchester but now based in Galway, Easons buyer Adrian White has made the move from book-selling to writing with his debut novel ‘An Accident Waiting to Happen’. 25-year-old Gregory is an aspiring writer going nowhere fast. When his partner Caitlin unexpectedly disappears from their Manchester council flat, leaving him

read more

The Poisonwood Bible is truly an enthralling book. Nathan Price, a Baptist preacher and evangelist from Southern America, travels to pre-independence Belgian Congo in 1959, with his wife and four daughters in tow, in order to educate the “Tribes of Ham” in the teachings of Jesus.

The story is told through the very different perspectives

read more

Zade is a novel set predominately in Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris, and its cast of characters are mostly familiar, and mostly dead. The narrator is a young woman suddenly catapulted from the joys of young love to the verge of suicide. When her world begins to fall apart, she takes refuge in her favourite Parisian haunt, where she puts a gun in

read more