My driving instructor texted me: ‘Things aren’t working out. I’ll transfer you back your money’
My 33rd birthday came and there was still a big L on the licence in my purse. It was time to get creative
Mad, Isn’t It? by Emma Doran and Country Fail by Killian Sundermann: Two comedy books that offer genuine comic relief
A memoir and a concept book that value warmth in their humour
Rita: A Memoir by Rita O’Hare; At the End of The Day by Jimmy Kelly; Until We Fall by Helena Sheehan
Memoirs of three people who committed to their take on a better world, with each subject’s political gravity falling to the left
The Story of Tayto by Bobby Aherne and Crunch: An Ode to Crisps - Two books about the humble potato snack
Historian Bobby Aherne has delivered a genuinely entertaining and enlightening book
As a disabled person, creating art can become a Faustian bargain
I like to think that each year, outside of journalism, I complete at least one substantial project. But last year I had nothing to declare
Ecological anxiety, a black American family and tennis feature in books by Paola Ferrante, Shannon Sanders and Jessica Anthony
Books in brief: Her Body Among Animals; Company; and The Most
Do I risk leaving without a raincoat? Do I abandon the comfort of home at all?
The sky portends rain and my feeble immune system can’t handle a wetting
Heroines and The Light Room by Kate Zambreno: An evolution from selfie mode to third-person universality
In her cult-classic text Heroines, Zambreno’s prose is performative; in The Light Room she reflects on motherhood and care
I recently spent an afternoon sobbing over a very big bag of squid
Food plays an important role in identity, and asserting your taste becomes a means of asserting who you are
I Love You I Love You I Love You by Laura Dockrill: A ‘will they, won’t they, tale’, tinged with noughties nostalgia
The legacy of Dockrill’s young adult writing career is evident in chirpy proses that brims with exclamation marks, superlatives and capitalisations
Are we deceiving aliens about the reality of life on this planet? Or just ourselves?
The Golden Record on Voyager 1 brings a curiously optimistic collection of sounds and images for potential discovery by non-Earthlings
Reeling in the Queers by Páraic Kerrigan: a reminder of the stigma and violence gay people faced
This book is as much a celebration of queer joy, as it is an insight into the transgression, trauma and tragedy that shaped queer Ireland over the past fifty years
Imagine if the Government had made real efforts to engage with disabled people
A conversation on reforming the welfare system for people with disabilities is needed – the Green Paper on Disability Reform was not the answer
Handouts, homelessness and other stories from the edge
Brief reviews of: Better Broken than New by Lisa St Aubin de Terán; The Wilderness Way by Anne Madden; The Deep End by Mary Rose Callaghan
‘I live in a body in which there is often no value to the pain I experience . . . it’s just a glitch in the system’
My experience would have me believe that if pain is akin to a black hole, an enigmatic force will pull, tug, expand and contract our being, warping time and everything else within it