Globally, water bodies and our ocean are the most degraded ecosystems in the world – they hold all of who are: Our waste, our memories, our history, our ancestry, our bones, our breath. Our health is completely tied to the health of water. It is impossible to restore our health without first restoring our relationship with water. Ebb and Flow is a response to this call to restore our relationship with water, especially the last ‘wild’ waters of the world. The …
Blog Posts
Arthur and Teddy Are Coming Out is a debut novel by Ryan Love. The story opens with Arthur, Teddy’s 79-year-old grandfather, coming out to his children. Teddy has a secret …
We all make lists every day. They’re the most mundane form of writing – or are they? Lists can be much stranger than they appear. Shopping lists, to-do lists, wish lists …
What is more delightful than sitting inside on a cold, bleak winter’s day and reading a good, cosy book? How about one that embraces the magic of the season as …
Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz: A Dissection of Horror, Dark Academia, Murder and Graveyards
Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz is our Teen Recommended Read for October, but an enjoyable read for anyone interested in gothic tales of horror, mystery and dark academia. …
Chris is an award-winning artist, illustrator, and author, known for his bold, colourful style. Chris’s new book is Cloud Babies, is out now. Cloud Babies is a gorgeous picture book, …
This week is Irish Book Week, celebrating Irish authors, illustrators, publishers, and bookshops, so we thought we’d celebrate by asking some of the Irish Book Week Ambassadors a couple of …
Manchán Magan’s 2020 bestseller, “Thirty-Two Words for Field”, is a treasure trove of almost-forgotten Irish words, place names, and traditions. His new book, Listen to the Land Speak, will be …
I wrote the outline for my first novel, There’s Been A Little Incident on a flight from Dublin to London where I was living at the time. I had been circling the themes of …
We wanted to dedicate this blog to sharing Dubray’s journey to becoming a more sustainable business. In a paper-based industry, there is a lot for us to explore and understand. …
While the Soviet Union was governed by a single communist party for sixty-nine years, it was the Stalinist era spanning 1924 to 1953 that were the most memorably brutal. Nobody …
My new book, Wild and Wonderful, is, in a way, a prequel to Our Wild World, which was published last year, and which explained how our natural world works. Wild …
981 AD. The Viking King of Dublin is dead. His young widow, Gormflaith, has ambitions for her son – and herself – but Ireland is a dangerous place and kings …
When Jane Austen wrote Emma, she described her eponymous character as ‘a heroine whom no one but myself will much like’. Booktok sensation Taylor Jenkins Reid is known for her …
Who was Juanita Casey? Here at Dubray we have loads of Irish Fiction. The Horse of Selene – An Irish Fictional novel by Juanita Casey is one such that we …
About Andrea Mara We love to recommend new books and offer you a taste of the latest publications or soon to be published. One such novel is by the award-winning …
As early as 2016 I knew I wanted to write the next stage of Nella’s story, continuing where I left off from the last scene in The Miniaturist, but I …
Here at Dubray we have been spending Pride month celebrating all the LGBTQ+ authors whose books we carry, and all the books we have with queer characters. We believe it …
My fiction debut, The Amusements, is a novel of interconnected stories set in the seaside town of Tramore – a place I know well because my family are from Waterford. With the …
The strange thing about summer jobs is that we often take them at a time in our lives when we are waiting for ‘real life’ to begin. When I was …
Short stories are the subject of so much myth and mysticism that for a long time, I was afraid to try writing them. So when I was struck with a …
Be they scholars or enthusiasts, millions have bowed at the feet of Joyce, to be confounded or delighted, in equal measure. In celebration of the enduring fascination with this book, …
It’s quite difficult to believe a quarter of a century has passed since the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (published in the U.S. as The Sorcerer’s Stone). …
I’m not alone in being hugely excited by news that we can expect yet another Lucy Barton book. Coming late to My Name is Lucy Barton, I remember being immediately …
It has taken the world by storm. Whether you are a long-time ‘before-the-Heartstopper-Netflix-adaptation’ fan or a newbie to the world of Alice Oseman, her writing is bringing joy to so …
About ten years ago I was touring my stand-up comedy show in England. Doing my due diligenceon the town I was performing in one night, I stumbled upon a chilling, …
The Murder Rule grew from the smallest of seeds. I came across an article in a newspaper about a young Irish law student who had spent a summer volunteering in …
The Trial of Lotta Rae is the tale of a woman who believes in justice. Who becomes notorious as she seeks that justice at an Old Bailey trial. It is set against …
Give yourself good things. Why is it that you so readily chat shit to yourself, about yourself? You run on empty. You expect so much and give little in return. …
“Can’t you see that it just goes on, over and over? The gods demand their justice, but we suffer for it, every time.” – Jennifer Saint, Elektra. The House of …
We are over half way through the Read Irish Women Challenge 2022 and it has been wonderful to behold the enthusiasm and response on social media. Thank you to everyone …
The irony is not lost on me that I was on the tube to the National Archives in London, of all places, the first time I read the name Edith …
For me, writing brings together my interests and hobbies into something unique and pleasurable. I love to paint – I enjoy historical research – and I like writing stories. I …
The idea of becoming a writer was given to me in a forest. There had been hints before but I’d ignored all the signs. Motherhood changed that. A group of …
‘The New Normal’ is a phrase we’ve all had to come to terms with over the last two years. Things that we thought would always be there, or always be …
Each of the novels I have written tell the story of an era of my life through the medium of fiction – details are exaggerated, places conflated, time compressed or …
Imagine you were the last person on earth. Imagine everyone else suddenly disappeared and you were left living solo, inhabiting a world suddenly emptied, a la I Am Legend, a la Wittgenstein’s …
#ReadIrishWomenChallenge22 #RIWC22 It’s April so I’m back once again with the Read Irish Women Challenge – the month where we celebrate outstanding books by Irish women. Starting on April 1st, …
As a journalist, sometimes you find a story and sometimes one comes to you. The latter was what I experienced in August 2018, when I was first contacted through Facebook …
They say actions speak louder than words. As a bookseller I should disagree, but for one night a year I will concur with this statement. Since 2007, on the last …
Shortly before the lockdown began in March 2020, we spent a weekend on the west coast of Clare, arriving into a storm that lasted the entire trip. Rain lashed the …
For over 100 years, International Women’s Day (IWD) has been a global celebration of women’s achievements held annually on March 8th. To mark the occasion this year, the Dubray Liffey …
As a toddler, my son was obsessed with Janet & Alan Ahlberg’s Peepo! It’s a day in the life of a baby, but in the background is the London Blitz: …
There were two major influences that led to me writing my latest novel, Nine Lives, and book in which nine strangers each receive a letter that has marked them for …
How different are we from the people who lived a thousand years ago or more? We all experience certain fundamental, universal emotions: grief, love, joy, despair. Sometimes we have to …
There’s something powerful, almost magical about rivers, the fast flow of water, the stories they contain within. I always think there’s something particularly special about places that have a river …
In my debut novel, 28 Questions, the narrator is a wannabe opera singer who tells a stranger on the tube, “I need to marry a writer”. I can attest to …
I finished the first draft of We Were Young on a July afternoon in the countryside. Nah, I thought at once. It’s tepid. It was, at this point, the story …
4 STARS For Fans Of: Carmen Maria Machado, Emma Donoghue, Deirdre Sullivan Highlights: “the skellington dance” / “red market” / “lemons” / “instinct” How To Gut A Fish is the …
As I contemplate the publication of my first book, Any Girl, a book I spent years writing and re-writing, I think back on the books that I’ve read and loved …
We love books. We fall in love with characters. We celebrate LGBTQ+ romance. We hope that love won’t go unrequited. We route for the underdog. We get involved in love …
Imagine you are ten years old. Tired of rereading Enid Blyton mystery books for the umpteenth time, you pick up one of the books by Agatha Christie you see your …
The Winter Guest is set in early 1921, at the height of The War of Independence- a messy, brutal war with no front lines, that often placed Irishman against Irishman. …
I grew up in the very beautiful Adelaide Hills in South Australia. It is a place of sweeping slopes of native bushland, pastoral valleys and vineyards; a place where kangaroos, …
What is the lure of an island? What draws us to stand, to sleep on a rock surrounded by water? And why in particular are artists attracted to islands? For …
Would you help out an old friend in their time of need? It’s usually a pretty easy thing to do. To loan them something they’ve run short of, to look …
It all started, as many stories do, when I was looking for something else. While writing a previous book, I consulted the genealogy section of Clare County Library’s website for …
Two households, both alike in dignity,In 1920s Shanghai, where we lay our scene,From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. There is little that intrigues …
Unlike naming a baby, characters in fiction can be given names that might prompt school yard bullying or put them at a disadvantage professionally. Writers can name a character Sylvester …
My husband tested positive for covid on Christmas Eve. Needing to keep my distance from him and without visitors, I plunged into a large, tricky jigsaw puzzle and was left …
It’s a question that all writers are asked, especially those who write fiction. Now, as I prepare to launch my debut novel, The Maid, a mystery about a hotel maid …
If you are like me, you may turn to a cup of coffee whenever you find your concentration fading. But have you ever considered that its brain-charging benefits are largely …
It All Started With A Phone Call… ‘If she’d turned off her phone, instead of listening in, perhaps no one would have died..’ Remember My Name started life when someone …
It would be easy for anyone to assume that Dubray staff get so used to seeing our monthly recommended reads that they slowly but surely start to blend into the …
Oh William by Elizabeth Strout. The welcome return of Lucy Barton. Recently widowed, she reconnects with her first husband, William, the father of her two grown daughters. Having forgiven past …
Serendipity is a wonderful thing. Without it, I would never have written A Little History of the Future of Dublin. Trevor White, director of the wonderful Little Museum of Dublin, …
Today, November 20th, is Transgender Day of Remembrance. This is a day acknowledged worldwide, when we remember our trans brothers and sisters who have lost their lives in some way …
I fondly recall walking around Waterford City circa October 2019 with a wheelie-suitcase full of my first children’s book, But Really…Adventures With a Difference, batches of blank order sheets, coffee …
It was my better half Jennie who looked at me during the creation of Shadow Voices – at the precise stage when it seemed as though the whole project, all …
Tabitha Plimtock and the Edge of the World was the most fun I’ve ever had writing a book. I’m not one to plot a story in advance, but I’d usually …
Jo Kerrigan tells us how her latest book came about. Over the past twenty years or so, Richard and I have been exploring Ireland’s scenery and history for our books. …
Meet The Leaflings… It was Niamh who discovered the leaflings. When we came up with the notion of working together, we would go to a coffee shop here in Skerries …
When I got married in the 1990s, it was common in my country for newlyweds to spend their honeymoons in the Caribbean where they’d have to wear all-inclusive resort bracelets …
Unconsecrated Ground If you want to find a cillín, you have to know what you are looking for. There will, in all likelihood, be no signpost or gate. It’s best …
Nothing sets high expectations quite like one of your favourite authors saying they’ll release the book that’s haunted them for the past decade, waiting for the right time to be …
“It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment’s carelessness. If I had ever believed it, I no longer …
Nobody tells stories quite like the Irish. From anecdotes to allegories, folktales to epic poems, the Irish have an innate talent for spinning words. So, it’s no surprise that Irish …
I believe in the power of empathy. It is a powerful, vitally important and, unfortunately, oftentimes uncommon thing. The Transgender Issue, Shon Faye’s debut nonfiction book, has no shortage of …
Thomas Mann was born into a mercantile family in Lübeck in Northern Germany in 1875 and died in Switzerland in 1955. In his early teens, when his father died, the …
September brings a sense of change with it. The summer light begins to fade, the leaves turn brown and crisp, and students flock back to school and college. Along with …
Before openhearted was published I had written reams in minute detail about my life growing up, about my husband Peter, about how he became ill and his subsequent suicide. I …
Harp Maiden had a somewhat unexpected element to its creation. My initial plan was to write a tale about magical music, and I chose the flute. But after speaking in …
At each stage of life, your sense of self and personal identity finds expression in the story you tell about yourself and the story significant others tell about you. That …
For a long while, my novel Dinner Party: A Tragedy was a short story that wasn’t quite right. It had an interesting premise – a woman with an eating disorder …
If I were to give aspiring fantasy writers any piece of advice it would be to include some form of magical transportation. This is especially relevant when you need to …
My name, Easkey, has its origins in ancient Gaelic for fish. I’m named after an important salmon river in Ireland that creates a wave where it flows into the sea; …
The annual Women’s Prize for Fiction is a celebration of a year of bestselling and unforgettable novels by women. It has been won by great writers from Ann Patchett for …
Some books are easier to write than others. I’ve written one or two in a matter of weeks; others have taken several years. The House of Ashes was the latter. …
1. May we start with the title of the book? (Your notes to the text tell us that it’s a translation of a phrase from a poem by Schiller, later …
I didn’t actually set out to write a book for general consumption. I was writing for myself. A career in medicine is anchored by various milestones as you progress through …
Wallis Simpson has always fascinated me, so to write a novel about her was an act of supreme self-indulgence! However, the Wallis I present in The Duchess is very different …
I wrote the first draft of All Her Fault at a corner of my dad’s dining room table – writing furiously to get the words down while my kids were …
When I started working on You & Me on Vacation, I didn’t set out to write an homage to When Harry Met Sally, but looking back, it’s obvious how much …
About Us is about three couples, at very different stages in their lives, struggling to connect. I think relationships are fascinating. They ebb and flow and at different stages people …
A couple of years ago, I was lucky enough to be asked to talk to a classroom of children about my route to publication. “I wrote my first book by …
I remember how the light felt on my face, the smell of the grass, the rough ‘skin’ of the oak tree, bluebells everywhere and out of nowhere, a cuckoo called. …
At the center of The Paper Palace is a woman who has to make an impossible and life-changing decision in a single summer day. 24 hours during which she has …
During the last recession, I once came upon a small ghost estate in the middle of the countryside. It was completely uninhabited; eerie and quiet, you could see right through …
When my novel, I Know I Saw Her, came out on 1st July, it was a kind of second time around for me. I’d been published before, about fifteen years …
Every Sunday morning, I go for a leisurely scroll. Not a stroll you understand, a scroll, walking my eyes down through the weekly long reads list collated by the news …
When I was writing my new novel, Yours Cheerfully, because it is a sequel (to my debut Dear Mrs Bird) and I know my characters and where they are in …
I had all sorts of notions about how I would write my first book. I’d craft my painfully wrought prose, I told myself, at the mahogany roll-top writing desk that …
I began writing Holding Her Breath when I was working at Dubray Books in Grafton Street. I loved the job – it was a joy to be around books all …
When the first lockdown hit I was excited to crack into my neverending-continuously-growing pile of books I wanted to read. I thought about how much time I would have to …
As the son of a carpenter from North Cork, I spent most of my childhood falling out of trees, wading through streams, and running through muddy cornfields in the Blackwater …
It all began with a reporter’s notebook and a murder, but by the time I’d finished, the story had expanded to encompass Irish land wars, adulterous love, a trans-Atlantic assassination …
‘Write what you know’. It’s the writing advice that most people have heard, and it’s advice I’ve never followed. In fifteen books, including the Maeve Kerrigan series and my latest …
I began writing The Seven Sisters series in 2013, and 1.2 million words later, I suddenly found myself about to write Book 7. The characters have been with me for …
This year marks my tenth anniversary as a full-time writer. And I’ve been reflecting on how much my writing life has changed over the years. One of these changes is …
I was conducting some background research for my novel Stranger when I came across an old article in The New Yorker about diagnosing mental illness. At one point, it referred …
How could it possibly be that a book which starts with a brutal murder in Arizona in 1915, before settling into an account of three more killings that took place …
My new novel The Beauty of Impossible Things is set in a small seaside town during a heatwave – a place of “novelties and souvenirs” to quote one of the …
I have always been interested in forgotten pieces of history, particularly where lives have been barely recorded, distorted by mis-telling, or eroded over time. It is the fragment that excites …
There is an urban myth I heard as a child that has always fascinated me. It goes along the lines of: Only two people know the recipe to the world’s …
Diary of a Young Naturalist follows seismic changes in your life, as the seasons turn. What do the seasons, and their transitions, symbolise to you? Do they reveal something about …
I’m sure you’re a more conscientious reader than I am, but back in late January and February I was really struggling to read. We were back in lockdown, this time …
On a February evening, just over three years ago, I was happily procrastinating on Twitter when I came across a post by a paediatric palliative care doctor. Here, he had …
It’s looking like 2021 will be another year when our yearnings for foreign shores will have to be assuaged with some vicarious travel. For me that’ll take the form of …
I began the #ReadIrishWomenChallenge back in April 2019 as a way to spotlight great work by Irish female authors, and to start a conversation about their writing. Now that it’s …
Reader, it started with Hydra. I had recently finished writing my novel, The Kindness, and was wearing my other hat, that of lyricist for my husband’s music. It was 2014, …
When I was pregnant with my first child, a woman I’d barely spoken to came over to me in the office toilets and touched my belly. It felt like such …
The southside suburbs located between the Grand Canal and the Dodder encompass the area we now know as Dublin 4. It contains some of the most expensive roads and houses …
It has been a joy to watch the progress of Leonard and Hungry Paul through our bookshops. Some books arrive like explosions, with huge fanfare and a maelstrom of sales …
The idea for this book came about during the debate around Ireland’s gay marriage referendum. I was sitting in the pub with my friend Colin, who was decrying the state …
“Too embarrassed even to try as long as everyone was looking at me, I made what was probably a fairly unique request. ‘Um, I’ll have a go. But I can’t …
I was introduced to Anna Jones by a friend whose eyes lit up as she described this one-pan lemony pasta where the cooking water becomes the sauce. The enthusiasm verged …
The Ministry of Bodies describes the final months of my long career as a hospital doctor. I left in the first week of February 2020, just before the pandemic. Although …
While I was writing my novel, my long suffering agent Harriet was subject to many anguished emails and phone calls about how long I was taking to finish. I would …
I’ve always wanted to write about the sea. When I came across the true story of the Flannan Isles vanishing – the mysterious disappearance, in 1900, of three lighthouse keepers …
Squeeeak … Thwop … Thwop… whoop … whoop … whoop … Dwooooooerp! … Dwooooooerp! Just some of the sounds that you might hear if you were deep underwater, far out …
A Good Father is a psychological suspense novel about a man who kills his family. I wanted to explore the idea that jealousy could be the driver of such an …
I first became drawn to the mountains in my early twenties, while living in the Alpine resort of Crans Montana in Switzerland. It’s a stunning place all year round, but …
When I was eight years old, I learned the word ‘wanderlust’ and though I’d never travelled very far from home, I knew it applied to me. Even then, I wasn’t …
Gardening has been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember. My dad is very passionateabout gardening and growing his own food. I learned everything …
Can you tell us about the inspiration behind Girl A? Abigail Dean: As an only child, I’ve always been interested in the relationships between siblings. I spent a long time …
They say a picture paints a thousand words and as a designer and artist I communicate visually. Having spent roughly seven years studying and learning the design process from The …
Over 30 years ago, I did a Diploma in Legal Studies at the College of Commerce, Rathmines. I rented a room in a house-share with art students from NCAD and …
This month my debut, Thin Places, flies out into the world. It’s a book I’ve been trying to write since the end of my 20’s, one I’ve felt haunted by …
Based on three generations of my own family, the seeds of Life Sentences were planted early. Until I was seven years old, I was blessed with a grandmother who …
It’s been just under a year since I began learning to play piano, something I’ve been putting off for a long time. I finally took the plunge when I spotted …
The last time I was in an Irish bookshop was Dubray in Grafton Street in March 2020. I was looking at a ‘New and Bestselling’ display that included my new …
There’s a tradition of children being told dark tales, and given an insight into the scarier side of life through our songs, stories and rhymes. The original versions of the …
I’ve had more best friends than boyfriends. With them I’ve had first cigarettes, first drinks, periods, crushes, encountered perverts, drunk too much, gone too far, got hurt, been betrayed, shamed, …
When I was a kid, there was a henna plant outside my grandmother’s apartment. It was one of my favourite things in the world, because every once in a while, …
Christmas 2020 promises to be one like no other. Most of us will be at home. There’ll be less visiting but more home fires; less cocktails in bars but more …
Caroline O’Donoghue shares some her inspiration behind The Rachel Incident… James and Rachel are two 20-somethings who meet working at a bookshop in 2010. I set it in a bookshop …
I’m often asked where I get the ideas for my books, and the answer is different every time. The Last Lifeboat began with a nugget of history I discovered back …
The sequel to the No.1 Sunday Times Bestseller Murder Before Evensong, A Death in the Parish is here! And Daniel Clement is back… It’s been a few months since murder …
Naoise Dolan tells us about her new read, The Happy Couple. Astrology is a harsh mistress, yet I’m ever in her thrall. As an Aries, I am constantly told that …
Nearly fifteen years ago, a man was found dead on a beach in the north-west of Ireland. Nobody knew who he was or where he had come from. The man …
Sometimes my book ideas start with plot and sometimes they start with a character. Don’t Look Back has a little of both. I had this wonderful opener in my head: …
Andrea Mara is back with her new crime thriller, No One Saw A Thing. A heart-stopping premise – a woman’s child goes missing after stepping onto an underground carriage and …
Service is a story about the abuse of power, set in a buzzy, high-end Dublin restaurant at the height of the boom. It’s told from three perspectives – waitress Hannah …
The idea for Hotel 21 came to me when I was staying in a small hotel in Lisbon and I accidentally annoyed the hotel cleaner. She wanted to get in …
Sheila O’ Flanagan, briefly tells us about her first historical novel, The Woman On The Bridge. The story of a young woman caught up in Ireland’s fight for freedom. The …
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