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We’re back for the first episode of 2026. This week we’re back in Books Upstairs in Dublin to interview Hugo Hamilton about his latest novel, Conversation with the Sea.

Fleeing his failed marriage in Berlin, Lukas Dorn revisits the West of Ireland, the place of his honeymoon two decades earlier. While his former wife is being cancelled at work and his daughter is arrested at a street protest, he tries to make sense of his broken life with a journal as his sole companion.

His inherited memory of the Nazi Holocaust comes face to face with the present when he meets a refugee from a recent warzone. As Lukas communes with the elements in this wild coastal place, he is forced into a confrontation with the past that will carry him to the edge of existence.

Conversation with the Sea speaks with heart-rending tenderness to the present moment, as it explores truth, illusion and the deadly silencing of war in a captivating tale of love in a time of displacement.

Truly a book for our time' PAUL LYNCH

FROM THE AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF 'THE SPECKLED PEOPLE'

'Told with Hamilton's signature purity of tone, an epic story about how love and history intersect.' ANNE ENRIGHT

'I don't think I've ever read a book as wise, or as moving. I will treasure it forever.' DONAL RYAN

'Hypnotic, passionate, urgent … Hamilton cuts a clean line to the truth of our mindless moment.' PAUL LYNCH

This episode is supported by a Project Award from the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon.

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.

Logo designed by Freya Sirr.

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Mince pie and Christmas cracker laden, today’s breakfast table is very festive indeed as we celebrate the best of books and cultural events in 2025. To help us celebrate we’ve gathered at our table four writers who have each been asked to choose just one book, either fiction or non fiction that they’ve especially admired this year and one cultural event – film, exhibition, music or anything else – that they have enjoyed over the last twelve months. The four writers are Sarah Gilmartin, Neil Hegarty, Caitriona Lally and Philip Davison.

Books recommended: Anne Enright: Attention: Writing on Life, Art and the World
Gerbrand Bakker: The Hairdresser’s Son; Ben Macintyre: The Spy and the Traitor ;
Sarah Moss: Ghost Wall; Helen Garner: Collected Diaries 1978-1998: How to end a story and Tim MacGabhann: The Black Pool: A Memoir of Forgetting.

This episode is supported by a Project Award from the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon.

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. Logo designed by Freya Sirr.

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This morning we welcome poet and critic Ciarán O’Rourke to our breakfast table here in Dublin 8. Ciarán has published two collections of poems with Irish Pages Press, The Buried Breath in 2018 and Phantom Gang in 2022, and he also runs the poetry website ragpickerpoetry.net. Ciarán talk about five recent books of poetry: Eiléan Ní Cuilleanáin, New Selected Poems; Catherine Ann Cullen, Storm Damages; Keith Payne, Savage Acres; Patrick Cotter, Quality Control at the Miracle Factory; Kevin Graham, Time's Guest.

Mark Granier is an award-winning Irish poet and photographer whose work has been widely published and admired for its sharp imagery, lyric precision, and subtle wit. Over the past two decades, he has brought out several acclaimed collections, including Airborne, Haunt, Fade Street, as well as Ghostlight, New and Selected Poems. His latest book, Everything You Always Wanted To Know, is perhaps his most personal and revealing to date, weaving together memory, intimacy, and the everyday with a striking visual clarity.

This episode is supported by a Project Award from the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon.

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. Logo designed by Freya Sirr.

Support the show