Strange Flowers · Donal Ryan

For more than two months I have been waiting to share this cover with you, which I find incredibly beautiful. The colour palette adds to it an autumnal quality. Strange Flowers is a new novel by Irish writer Donal Ryan. No one forbade me to share the cover sooner; I was the one who wanted to wait until publication day. The story begins in 1973 when the twenty-year-old Moll Gladney steps on a bus one morning and disappears. Five years later she returns, not alone, which changes the life of her family forever. I have only read one novel by Ryan and intend to read them all. His writing style appeals to me. As I have mentioned before, I like Irish writers.

Cover illustration: Owen Gent

Strange Flowers
By Donal Ryan
Hardback, 240 pages
ISBN: 9781784163044
Doubleday

James & Nora · Edna O'Brien

Out today in paperback is James & Nora: A Portrait of a Marriage by Irish writer Edna O‘Brien, published by W&N. This is a reissue of a slim book, originally published in the US in 1981, with O'Brien‘s portrait of Irish writer James Joyce and Nora Barnacle‘s marriage. The timing of its release is no coincidence, just in time for Bloomsday on June 16, celebrated by many fans of Joyce. It's named after the protagonist Leopold Bloom in his work Ulysses, which takes place on that day in 1904.

Cover image: Nora Barnacle and James Joyce by artist John Nolan

Edna O'Brien was awarded the prestigious David Cohen Prize in 2019, given to British or Irish writers for a lifetime achievement in literature. Her first novel was The Country Girls, published in 1960. It caused a scandal in Ireland and was both banned and burned. O‘Brien's large body of work consists of novels, short stories, plays, poems, non-fiction, and her memoir Country Girl.

James & Nora: A Portrait of a Marriage
By Edna O'Brien
Paperback, 80 pages
ISBN: 9781474616812
Weidenfeld & Nicolson