Episode 5: My conversation with Karen Spears

This was such a fun conversation on a hot summer day with a deep dive into the lure of Irish writing, the need to prune what we read to find what's next (with Karen’s own special formula for choosing what to keep reading), and a bit of an examination of the joy of the reading experience.

Here are the books and authors we mention:

A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
The Diviners, Margaret Laurence
A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
Becky Chambers (Sci Fi author)
A Study for Obedience, by Sarah Bernstein
Fayne, by Anne-Marie MacDonald (loved in audio read by author)
The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy
The Fraud by Zadie Smith

Irish writers and books:

Sally Rooney
Ann Enright
Tana French (mystery writer)
Donal Ryan

The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe
Brooklyn and Nora Webster, by Colm Toibin
Bina, by Ankara Schofield
A Ghost in the Throat, by Doireann Ní Ghríofa
Apeirogon, by Colum McCann
Small things like these, by Claire Keegan
Snow, by John Banville
Soldier, Sailor, by Claire Kilroy
Checkout 19 and Pond, by Claire Louise Bennett

Scottish writers and books:

Robert Louis Stevenson
Ian Rankin
Mungo by Douglas Stuart