It’s that time of the year, and my first time to have a horse in the race, so I’m delighted to be included in a couple of fine lists: Sinéad Crowley (RTE Arts and Media correspondent), includes Generation in her Top Ten Books of 2015 (where, it has to be said, it looks mighty stylish beside Anne Enright’s The Green Road). And over in Books Ireland, it’s one of Sue Leonard’s pick of books by first-time writers for 2015. Thanks to both for the inclusion.

I’ve just finished my Neapolitan marathon. I slowed a bit towards the end, probably because I was gorging, instead of reading at a nice steady publication pace, but also because I was more interested in the backdrop—Naples, and the neighbourhood in which the two protagonists grew up—than in their relationship, of which I got a little tired by book four. But it was a wonderful immersion into that world, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The first Elena Ferrante book I read was Days of Abandonment. The prose hit me like a punch in the face, and as much as I enjoyed the Naples books, it remains my favourite.

Next up: Maggie Nelson’s The Art of Cruelty.

I spent a very pleasant couple of hours yesterday talking MFAs, book deals and much else at the Dublin Book Festival in the very lovely Irish Georgian Society.

Thanks to Julianne, Emma, and everyone who helped to make it happen, and to James Ryan from UCD and my fellow panelists, Henri McKervey and Susan Stairs.

And thanks to everyone for coming and getting involved.

Things are starting to hot up as Dublin Book Festival draws close.

Madeline Keane gives a nice taster in the Sunday Independent.

And over on the Dublin Book Festival website, the interviews are appearing thick and fast, including one with yours truly.

I’m still trying to decide if I’ve time to do our event at 2.30 in the fab City Assembly House which happens to be on South William Street and thereby necessitates a post-event beverage in Grogans, and still get over to Smock Alley in time for The Art of the Book Review at 4.30. Hmmm…

Edna O’Brien has long been part of my reading and writing life (read my Stinging Fly blogpost), so I was delighted to be in the audience in the Pavillion, Dun Laoghaire, when she returned to promote The Little Red Chairs.

Sinead Gleeson facilitated the event beautifully, and allowed Edna plenty of time to develop her answers. She talked about literature with a capital ‘L’, which can be a surprisingly rare occurrence outside academia, and about finding her place in that milieu, which was not always easy; if she were to have a tombstone, which she doesn’t intend to, she says, it would read ‘frightened and fighting’. She’s entertaining and wise and wonderful – but we knew that. She has long been an inspiration, to me and many others, and she continues to inspire.

I don’t care what colours my house is, not really. Except when it look like a cupcake (pink with blue trim), then a Neapolitan ice cream (pink with grey that’s actually brown trim) – and no, you’re not getting photos. Damn you for your 50 shades, Christian Gray; what was wrong with light, dark, and maybe charcoal? Maybe I should look elsewhere for my literary inspiration. Pink with pink anyone?

Frost, Banshee, gorse, I’m reading them all. 

Dinosaurs on other planets, Now and at the hour of our death, more Death – at Whitewater Church, and all the while the final Ferrante, tempting me from the wings;  I’m falling behind, in a good way.

And with so much to catch up on, I’ve only gone and started in to The Long Gaze Back, and it’s just brilliant. Major congrats to all involved.

I love this festival. This year it runs from 12th -15th November. There are so many enticing events. I have my eye on a few, including Writing Long & Short, and The Art of the Book Review.

And this year, for the first time, I get to participate. I’ll be talking to James Ryan about Mastering the Deal: Life After the Creative Writing MA, alongside Henrietta McKervey and Susan Stairs. It’s on Sunday the 15th at 2.30, in the gorgeous Irish Georgian Society on South William Street. The good news is, it’s FREE, but you need to book.

It’s been a good week for Generation. La Table Ronde has bought French rights, which is pretty fancy. It also means that some day there will be a French book out there that I have a fighting chance of understanding.

And, as if that’s not enough, on Saturday Freya McClements wrote a lovely, considered review for the Irish Times.

I finally finished this. It’s a slow-moving meditation on a life lived on the river. Or, a sort of half-life. It was first published in 1962; this translation from Spanish is by Jon Lindsay Miles (he writes about the experience here). I loved the Argentinian setting, and the language, and the strangeness, all of which are bound up with the river, yet it kept me at arms length, and took me ages to finish.

The distance was created by Conti’s nearly all-male cast, all men of mystery, all men of few words. It irked me that the only two women in the book were an ‘old woman’ and a ‘whore’, both downtrodden/barefoot/pregnant. It didn’t help that one of these inscrutable men (‘the man’)

‘was always maddened by this willingness of whores. There’s nothing quite so chilly nor more distant than a whore.’

Quite.

I’m looking forward to my next read.