But this is a love story and Michael comes to realize that all things are sustained by love and this is where real meaning resides.

    Anthony Cronin’s account of life in post-war literary Dublin is as funny and colourful as one would expect from an intimate of Brendan Behan, Patrick Kavanagh and Myles na Gopaleen; but it is also a clear-eyed and bracing antidote to the kitsch that passes for literary history and memory in the Dublin of today. Cronin writes with remarkable subtlety of the frustrations and pathologies of this generation: the excess of drink, the shortage of sex, the insecurity and begrudgery, the painful limitations of cultural life, and the bittersweet pull of exile. We read of a comical sojourn in France with Behan, and of Cronin’s years in London as a literary editor and a friend of the writer Julian Maclaren-Ross and the painters Robert MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun. The generation chronicled by Cronin was one of wasted promise. That waste is redressed through the shimmering prose of Dead as Doornails, earning its place in Irish literary history alongside the best works of Behan, Kavanagh and Myles.

    After a brief, all-consuming romance he abruptly rejects her, sending her into a tailspin of jealous obsession and longing. If he ever comes back to her, she resolves to hang onto him and his love at all costs, even if it destroys her… Part breathless confession, part lucid critique, Acts of Desperation renders a consciousness split between rebellion and submission, between escaping degradation and eroticizing it, between loving and being lovable. With unsettling, electric precision, Nolan dissects one of life’s most elusive mysteries: Why do we want what we want, and how do we want it? Heralding the arrival of a stunning new literary talent, Acts of Desperation interrogates the nature of fantasy, desire, and power, challenging us to reckon honestly with our own insatiability.

    In this collection, she evokes what it means to be young, to be a woman, to have both feet firmly planted both in this world & the virtual. She asks fascinating questions like, 'Is anyone moved by the plainness of raw skin anymore?' She makes you trust she's the necessary answers with intelligence & confidence. In this book, she builds an identity for herself, tears it down & builds herself anew. It's breathtaking to behold."--Roxane Gay, author of An Untamed State & Bad Feminist“The poems & prose pieces in this smart & complex collection illuminate the shape of a new, 21st century webcam feminism—one that questions its own ambitions, knows the shape of pornstar mouths & doubts the sanctity of individuality when pitted against the existential. Gabby writes with radical uncertainty about illusions of control, the limits of identity & what it means to still want to kiss another human amidst the screenshots. This is a book that invents its own female gaze & then, like a bad bitch, breaks the lens.”--Melissa Broder, author of Meat Heart“Gabby Bess’s Alone with Other People orchestrates an impressive catalog of young human want with a uncompromising style. In the span between its 1st phrase The sex can be rough & its last sentence, Panic, the reader forward thru a virtual rolodex of self-inquisition shaped by boredom, horror, aspiration, fear for future, wonder, lust. There’s a lot of intense light coming off this book full of screens & suns & large black dots.”--Blake Butler, author of Sky Saw“Don’t take me for crazy when I say that the verse “Hahaha, am I alone here?” is the one that best sums up Gabby’s incredible debut book, because it’s true. Thru each & every page that makes up Alone with Other People, the author manages to head out into the world with a sane, witty & protesting laugh. A laugh about the strength of woman, of youth, of poetry. When Gabby says hahaha, it also starts to unravel before our very eyes a series of texts that first & foremost find beauty in the mundane, followed by the universality of intimacy, & lastly (& most importantly): the sensation that with this book, we will never, ever feel lonely again.”--Luna Miguel, author of Bluebird & Other Tattoos“Of-the-moment, brilliant & triumphantly sad, Illuminati Girl Gang leader Gabby Bess’s debut Alone with Other People is a post-feminist, hyper selfconscious teen swansong of the Internet age. The line between girl body & Macbook is collapsed in these vignettes that riff from blog posts, text messages & tumblr memes, & what emerges is a “modern tragic figure who would sacrifice herself for whatever.”--Kate Durbin, author of E! Entertainment“Alone with Other People deftly deals with relationships in a highly mediated age–one that twists our perceptions of self & others. Gabby shows us how we can be simultaneously complicit in this culture but still have the desire to fight against it.”--Ann Hirsch, performance artist

    Tolkien and H.P. Lovecraft A pioneer in the realm of imaginative literature, Lord Dunsany has gained a cult following for his influence on modern fantasy literature, including such authors as J.R.R. Tolkien and H. P. Lovecraft. This unique collection of short stories ranges over five decades of work. Liberal selections of earlier tales—including the entire Gods of Pegana as well as such notable works as "Idle Days of the Yann" and "The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth"—are followed by memorable later tales, including several about the garrulous traveler Joseph Jorkens and the outrageous murder tale "The Two Bottles of Relish." Throughout, the stories are united by Dunsany's cosmic vision, his impeccable and mellifluous prose, and his distinctively Irish sense of whimsy.Here published for the first time by Penguin Classics, this edition is the only annotated version of Dunsany's short stories. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

    Nobody remembers when it started; rain on the western seaboard is a condition of living. But now – just as Father Coffey proclaims the coming of the electricity – the rain clouds are lifting. Seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe is idling in the unexpected sunshine when Christy makes his first entrance into Faha, bringing secrets he needs to atone for. Though he can't explain it, Noel knows right then: something has changed. As the people of Faha anticipate the endlessly procrastinated advent of the electricity, and Noel navigates his own coming-of-age and his fallings in and out of love, Christy's past gradually comes to light, casting a new glow on a small world. Harking back to a simpler time, This Is Happiness is a tender portrait of a community – its idiosyncrasies and traditions, its paradoxes and kindnesses, its failures and triumphs – and a coming-of-age tale like no other. Luminous and lyrical, yet anchored by roots running deep into the earthy and everyday, it is about the power of stories: their invisible currents that run through all we do, writing and rewriting us, and the transforming light that they throw onto our world.

    The men in these tales frequently linger at the edges — their longings and failures exerting a subterranean pull on the women in their lives. In ‘The Secret Lives of Men’, a woman revisits her hometown and learns a long-held secret about her first boyfriend. In ‘The Bad Dog Park’, a man’s devotion to his pet ultimately forces him to confront his true hopes and fears. And in ‘The Other Side of the River’, a snap decision has devastating consequences for a mother and her family. Written in Blain’s trademark unadorned yet powerful prose, these stories resonate long after they are finished.The Secret Lives of Men is an exceptional collection by one of Australia’s leading writers.

    Following the success of his Running Press titles Danny Boy and Voices of Ireland, McCourt explores this beloved icon of Irish heritage through vivid anecdotes, charming folk tales, and recent documented incidents. Said to have been first crafted more than 400 years ago in a fishing village on Galway Bay, there is much more to the story of the Claddagh ring than simple popular history, and McCourt tracks it down and recounts it with his stellar storytelling finesse.

    A student plagiarizes a paper and holds fast to her alibi until she finds herself complicit in the resurrection of one professor's shadowy past. A dinner party becomes the occasion for the dissolution of more than one marriage. A woman is hired to find a wife for the one true soulmate she's ever found. In all, Rebecca Lee traverses the terrain of infidelity, obligation, sacrifice, jealousy, and yet finally, optimism. Showing people at their most vulnerable, Lee creates characters so wonderfully flawed, so driven by their desire, so compelled to make sense of their human condition, that it's impossible not to feel for them when their fragile belief in romantic love, domestic bliss, or academic seclusion fails to provide them with the sort of force field they'd expected.

    ?Shortlisted for the 2021 An Post Irish Book Awards Eason Novel of the Year...A darkly funny, gripping and profoundly moving novel about a life spinning out of control, a life live without the bedrock of familial love, and the corruption of material wealth that tears at the soul. ‘It was my father’s arrest that brought me here, although you could certainly say that I took the scenic route.’Here is rehab, where Ben – the only son of a rich South Dublin banker – is piecing together the shattered remains of his life. Abruptly cut off, at the age of 27, from a life of heedless privilege, Ben flounders through a world of drugs and dead-end jobs, his self-esteem at rock bottom. Even his once-adoring girlfriend, Clio, is at the end of her tether.  Then Ben runs into an old school friend who wants to cut him in on a scam: a shady property deal in the Balkans. The deal will make Ben rich and, at one fell swoop, will deliver him from all his troubles: his addictions, his father’s very public disgrace, and his own self-loathing and regret. Problems solved. But something is amiss. For one thing, the Serbian partners don’t exactly look like fools. (In fact they look like gangsters.) And, for another, Ben is being followed everywhere he goes. Someone is being taken for a ride. But who?

    Since then her work has been translated throughout the world. Edna O'Brien has called Tolstaya "an enchantress." Anita Desai has spoken of her work's "richness and ardent life." Mixing heartbreak and humor, dizzying flights of fantasy and plunging descents to earth, Tolstaya is the natural successor in a great Russian literary lineage that includes Gogol, Yuri Olesha, Bulgakov, and Nabokov.White Walls is the most comprehensive collection of Tolstaya's short fiction to be published in English so far. It presents the contents of her two previous collections, On the Golden Porch and Sleepwalker in a Fog, along with several previously uncollected stories. Tolstaya writes of lonely children and lost love, of philosophers of the absurd and poets working as janitors, of angels and halfwits. She shows how the extraordinary will suddenly erupt in the midst of ordinary life, as she explores the human condition with a matchless combination of unbound imagination and unapologetic sympathy. A New York Review Books Original "Tolstaya carves indelible people who roam the imagination long after the book is put down." --Time

    Short, sardonic, and dark, these six brief fiction stories and one non-fiction piece are consummate Vonnegut with piercing satire and an eye for life’s obscene inanity. Also available for the first time is an unfinished science-fiction short story, included in the appendix. These stories trace trivial human lives and mundane desires, which is precisely where Vonnegut’s inimitable perspective as a humanist shines, illuminating his alternating hopeful and dismal outlook, although undoubtedly focusing on the latter. Here as in his greatest novels, Vonnegut’s writing takes us to the darkest corners of the human soul and with wit and humor, manages to remind us of our potential to be something greater.

    This volume includes the complete texts of fourteen plays by the leading Irish playwrights: W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, J. M. Synge, Bernard Shaw, Sean O'Casey, Samuel Beckett, Brian Friel, Conor McPherson, and Marina Carr. The plays are accompanied by John P. Harrington's introduction and by his detailed explanatory annotations.For ease of reference, "Backgrounds and Criticism" is chronologically organized by playwright and includes prefaces, letters, journal entries, program notes, and interpretive essays for each play in the volume. In addition, essays by Lady Gregory, John Eglinton, W. B. Yeats, Frank J. Fay, and Colm Tóibín provide an overview of the Irish dramatic literary revival. Finally, the present and future state of theater in Ireland is considered in essays by Victor Merriman, Mary Trotter, Lionel Pilkington, and Joan Fitz-Patrick Dean.A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.Each Norton Critical Edition includes an authoritative text, contextual and source materials, and a wide range of interpretations-from contemporary perspectives to the most current critical theory-as well as a bibliography and, in many cases, a chronology of the author's life and work.

    The Weight of Love pulls you in and does not let go.' ANNE ENRIGHT'Beautiful and painful, exquisitely written, shot through with nostalgia for our earlier selves.' MARIAN KEYESLondon, 1996. Robin and Ruth meet in the staff room of an East London school. Robin, desperate for a real connection, instantly falls in love. Ruth, recently bereaved and fragile, is tentative.When Robin introduces Ruth to his childhood friend, Joseph, a tortured and talented artist, their attraction is instant. Powerless, Robin watches on as the girl he loves and his best friend begin a passionate and turbulent affair.Dublin 2017. Robin and Ruth are married and have a son, Sid, who is about to emigrate to Berlin. Theirs is a marriage haunted by the ghost of Joseph and as the distance between them grows, Robin makes a choice that could have potentially devastating consequences.The Weight of Love is a beautiful exploration of how we manage life when the notes and beats of our existence, so carefully arranged, begin to slip off the stave. An intimate and moving account of the intricacies of marriage and the myriad ways in which we can love and be loved.'Delicate, powerful, hypnotic.' DONAL RYAN

    These entertaining stories portray the lives of the people who know where they are, but don't know what they're doing.