dlr Library Voices Autumn Series

DLR Library Voices Series presents

Jay McInerney in conversation with Nadine O’Regan

dlr LexIcon Studio, Thu 8 Sep, 7.30pm, €10/8

Since Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney has been recognised as one of the great chroniclers of our times.  His new novel, Bright, Precious Days paints a portrait of New York as Obama and Clinton battle for leadership and Lehman Brothers teeters on the brink of collapse. It’s the story of a generation that flew too close to the sun on wings of cocaine and whose lives changed irrevocably on 9/11. Nadine O’Regan is Books and Arts Editor - The Sunday Business Post

Eimear McBride in conversation with Sinead Gleeson

dlr LexIcon Studio, Tue 13 Sep, 7.30pm, €10/8

Her debut novel A Girl is a Half-formed Thing took nine years to publish and earned Eimear McBride massive critical acclaim and a cornucopia of literary prizes including the Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction, the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Desmond Elliot Prize and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize.

The Lesser Bohemians is her eagerly-anticipated second novel and it’s a story of first love and redemption. One night in London an eighteen year old girl, recently arrived from Ireland to study drama, meets an older actor and a tumultuous relationship ensues. Set across the bedsits and squats of mid-nineties north London, The Lesser Bohemians is a story about love and innocence, joy and discovery, and the grip of the past.

Patrick Deeley in conversation with Selina Guinness

dlr LexIcon Studio, Tue 22 Sep, 7.30pm, €10/8

Patrick Deeley has published six highly acclaimed collections of poems.  His evocative, lyrical memoir of grief, love and renewal, The Hurley Maker’s Son, has become a major bestseller. Deeley's train journey home to rural East Galway in autumn 1978 was a pilgrimage of grief: his giant of a father had been felled, the hurley-making workshop silenced.

In a style reminiscent of John McGahern’s Memoir, Deeley’s beautifully paced prose captures the rhythms, struggles and rough edges of a rural life that was already dying even as he grew. This is an enchanting, beautifully written account of family, love, loss, and the unstoppable march of time. 

Robert Harris in conversation with Hugh Linehan

Pavilion Theatre, Tue 4 Oct, 8pm, €12/10

Described as 'the UK’s supreme exponent of the literary thriller', Robert Harris is the author of ten bestselling novels: the Cicero Trilogy and historical and political thrillers such as Fatherland, Enigma, Archangel, Pompeii, The Ghost, and An Officer and A Spy.

His latest novel, set in Papal Rome, carries all the hallmarks of Harris’s exhilarating storytelling style.  In Conclave, the Pope has died and behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel, one hundred and twenty Cardinals from all over the globe prepare to cast their votes in the world’s most secretive election. They are holy men. But they have ambition. And they have rivals. Over the next seventy-two hours one of them will become the most powerful spiritual figure on earth.

Margaret Atwood in conversation with Declan Hughes

Pavilion Theatre, Sun 9 Oct, 8pm, €25 (INCLUDES SIGNED COPY OF HAG-SEED. PLEASE RETAIN TICKET TO EXCHANGE FOR BOOK ON THE NIGHT.)

Margaret Atwood has consistently named Shakespeare as one of the most important influences on her work. 'The Tempest is, in some ways, an early multi-media musical,' she says. 'If Shakespeare were working today he’d be using every special effect technology now makes available. But The Tempest is especially intriguing because of the many questions it leaves unanswered. What a strenuous pleasure it has been to wrestle with it!'

Published as part of the Hogarth Shakespeare’s modern interpretations series, Hag-Seed is Margaret Atwood’s novel take on Shakespeare’s play of enchantment, revenge and second chances.  Atwood leads us on an interactive, illusion-ridden journey filled with new surprises and wonders of its own.   We’re delighted to welcome Margaret Atwood back to Dun Laoghaire.

Sebastian Barry in conversation with Joseph O’Connor

Pavilion Theatre, Tue 1 Nov, 8pm, €12/10

Sebastian Barry returns with a wonderful new novel set in mid-19th Century America.  Having signed up for the US army in the 1850s, Thomas McNulty and his brother-in-arms, John Cole, go on to fight in the Indian wars and, ultimately, the Civil War.  Orphans of terrible hardships themselves, they find these days to be vivid and alive, despite the horrors they both see.

Moving from the plains of the West to Tennessee, Days Without End is a masterpiece of atmosphere and language. An intensely poignant story of two men and a fresh look at some of the most fateful years in America's past, this is a novel never to be forgotten.  Don’t miss this rare chance to hear two of Ireland’s greatest men of letters in conversation.

Margaret Drabble in conversation with Niall MacMonagle

Pavilion Theatre, Wed 23 Nov, 7.30pm, €10/8

Dame Margaret Drabble is the author of eighteen novels including A Summer Bird-Cage, The Millstone, The Peppered Moth, The Red Queen, and most recently, the highly acclaimed The Pure Gold Baby. She has also written biographies, screenplays and was the editor of the Oxford Companion to English Literature.

Her glittering new novel, The Dark Flood Rises, holds our hand as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. The question of what constitutes a good death and how we understand it if we have lived well preoccupy this dark and enthralling novel. With characteristic wit and caustic prose, The Dark Flood Rises dazzles, entertains and poses the big  existential questions in equal measure.