Rick O'Shea

@rickoshea.bsky.social

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RTÉ Broadcaster on RTE Gold.

Irish Independent books columnist.

Runs Ireland's largest book club. Patron of Epilepsy Ireland. Board of Fighting Words NI.

Event host, book pusher, quizzer.

https://linktr.ee/rickoshea

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Mike McCormack, Sally Rooney, Emma Donoghue, Tana French, Anna Burns, Paul Murray, John McGahern. Out of 71 titles? Punching well above our weight. Also, did not know "That They May Face the Rising Sun" is now published as "By the Lake" in the U.S.

We all thought the NYT missed some stuff (the perils of cautious consensus, amirite) so the Lit Hub gang got together and threw another 71 titles into the mix. I daresay this list is weirder and more interesting than the NYT list, but I'm biased. lithub.com/what-the-new...

What the New York Times Missed: 71 More of the Best Books of the 21st Centurylithub.com Last week, The New York Times Book Review published a list of the “100 Best Books of the 21st Century.” (Well, so far, obviously. Why not just call it the best books of the last 25 year…

The @nytimes.com Top 100 books list is what these things always are - fascinating, full of things I should have read (some of which are still on my shelves), full of things I've never heard of, almost devoid of genre fiction, and very heavily leaning towards the country it's compiled in. (1/2)

Ugly, but true. I also have some cli-fi suggestions in the column from the weekend ICYMI: www.independent.ie/entertainmen...?

Tomorrow in the newspaper column I talk about tuning out from the climate crisis and how cli-fi makes me pay attention again. Written from a beautiful spot in which it all seems impossible. Tomorrow in the review section of the physical @irishindependent.bsky.social or online from early.

Well this got a laugh from me....

this is by far the craziest longshot candidate replacement idea I’ve heard, but if the technology’s there I’ll hear them out

Around Sunday morning at 9 for the Gold Lounge with me on RTE Gold? Cool. If not listen back at the link in bio any time afterwards. There's a whole universe of music you don't know out there...

Seconded. journalofmusic.com/news/new-oir...

New Oireachtas Report Calls for Regular Arts Bulletins on Irish Mediajournalofmusic.com 'The information we receive from our media outlets is vital to the choices that shape our lives' – Committee Chair.

"A study on Irish attitudes toward climate change has found more than half of respondents did not believe climate change is harming people in Ireland" Surprised by this? Not really. www.irishtimes.com/environment/...

Climate change: People do not want to take actions amid belief Ireland not being harmed, survey findswww.irishtimes.com Many questioned have ‘no intention’ of cutting meat consumption, see foreign trips as ‘part of their identity’ and are reluctant to live car-free, according to Government study

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“I was so pleased to finally get it out, I was seriously tempted to dedicate the book to myself.” I went to Kevin Barry's house for The Washington Post and saw his yoga mat:

With a western romance, Kevin Barry keeps himself from getting boredwww.washingtonpost.com “I’m wary of repeating myself,” the Irish writer says about his fourth novel, “The Heart in Winter,” set in 1890s America.

I feel this is all I need from social media today...

Unbothered. Moisturized. Happy. In Her Lane. Focused. Flourishing.

ICYMI - why I'm happy I don't "read like a man"! I don't think many of my male friends do either. Or my eldest son, or my brother... Maybe we're an enclave of outsiders? No, seriously, go look up "books for men" on A*azon before you read it. www.independent.ie/entertainmen...

Songs from 1929 to 2023 this weekend with me on the Gold Lounge. Dino, Judy, Bobby, Louis, Lionel Hampton, Etta Jones, Mel Tormé and whatever else takes my fancy between here and then. Sunday morning at 9 on RTÉ Gold - listen back on the Gold Website, the RTÉ radio app or at the link in bio...

*** WHAT ARE YOU READING THIS WEEKEND? *** What do you have in mind? I am *flying* in to this - Miranda July's All Fours. You? Tomorrow in the Irish Independent column I address why exactly it is I don't "read like a man"...

This. Carry on.

My thoughts on #KindsOfKindness? I really liked Dogtooth, The Lobster, and Killing Of A Sacred Deer so this is a nice return to those sorts of Yorgos Lanthimos films for me. Three very darkly funny, weird stories that echo each other. Impressive performances, an unsettling score, atmospheric,...

It has been an age since I did one of these, but the show does go on every weekend. This Sunday morning on the Gold Lounge I'll have some amazing Miles Davis, Laufey, Lester Young and Sam Butera's Big Horn... Sunday at 9am on RTE Gold or listen back anytime at gold.rte.ie.

Last ones from the recent trip, swear. There's a Jean Cocteau exhibition on at Peggy Guggenheim in Venice full of film, sculptures, sketches, film posters... I have adored him ever since the first time I saw Orphee a lifetime ago. We'll worth your time. (1/2)

Really enjoyed this, reminded me that there are Culture novels I haven't read...

"When he began putting his wilder imaginative energies into the science fiction books, the divide between Banks and M. Banks became a rift—the grounded nature of the mainstream books left them feeling thin next to his genre-blending fiction of the 1980s." Me on the strange case of Iain Banks:

Iain Banks: a double life | John Self | The Critic Magazinethecritic.co.uk This brilliant but wayward novelist wrote both literary and science fiction. His disturbing debut, The Wasp Factory, is being reissued this year

Sadly, tomorrow's UCD Festival has been cancelled, but I had interviewed the wonderful @kitdewaal.bsky.social in advance for a Shelf Analysis. Find it in tomorrow's column in the review section of the Irish Independent.

Go. Buy it. (The book, not the now out of date newspaper!)

Thanks to @rickoshea.bsky.social for including Ghost Mountain in his excellent weekly Shelf Analysis column in the Irish Independent today.

Saturday's column has finally made its way to the interweb. The world's worst school trip, in the 90s to a town in the Netherlands called Valkenburg, and my group's obsession with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, kicks it all off... www.independent.ie/.../love.../...

Love, death and The Blues Brothers: Rick O’Shea on life stories that will stay with youwww.independent.ie In 1990, when I was in fifth year, we went on our only foreign school tour, to a tiny spot of a town in the Netherlands called Valkenburg. Looking back with the cynical eye of adulthood, I’m sure it ...

Thank you to Richard E. Grant for being such a giving interview guest on Friday night in a packed tent in Merrion Square. He came straight from a day of filming in the UK to a flight, a car, and then straight onstage after 30 secs to catch his breath. He was a gent - the definition of a true pro.

If you're around in Dublin tonight I'm interviewing Richard E. Grant as part of ILF Dublin in Merrion Square at 8pm. Sure where else would you be? ilfdublin.com/whats-on/fes...

A Pocketful of Richard E. Grantilfdublin.com From Withnail and I to Spice World, the Academy-Award nominated actor tells all in an honest, hilarious memoir reflecting on finding happiness even on the darkest of days.

Each of these reviews piling up saddens me. I mean, I'm still going to see it, obviously...

Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis is a painfully awful labour of love on.ft.com/4bxXLw6

Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis is a painfully awful labour of love — Cannes reviewon.ft.com [FREE TO READ] Another giant of 1970s cinema bites the dust with an over-ambitious camp sci-fi satire

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It occurred to me, based on something someone here said yesterday, that anyone born in the UK after 1979 has experienced only two changes of governing party in their lifetime. Which seems wild.

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I see another "it is impossible to make a living writing" post making the rounds so I just want to tell you again about something the Icelandic government does. They give writers salaries to write books. Icelandic is such a small language, which makes for a very small book market ... 🧵

I'm on the radio every day you know. Weird the number of people I meet who ask me what I'm doing these days... gold.rte.ie until 4pm. Come play.

Just in case you missed it at the weekend I talked to The Rick O'Shea Book Club's favourite ever author @liznugent.bsky.social for the column in the Irish Independent. She picked some cracking books for Shelf Analysis... www.independent.ie/entertainmen...

Rick O’Shea talks to Liz Nugent on why all her books are whydunits and how Marian Keyes captured the zeitgeistwww.independent.ie Ihope it doesn’t surprise you that Liz Nugent, author of the most striking and exquisite sociopaths and murderers in books like Our Little Cruelties, Skin Deep and Lying In Wait is, in real life, a th...

There are, bizarrely, still a few tickets available for my interview with Richard E. Grant at ILF Dublin this coming Friday night in Merrion Square... Fancy it? ilfdublin.com/whats-on/fes...

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