Irish authors reading list

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10 must-read books by Irish authors

The Bee Sting book by Paul Murray

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Extract: The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

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7 riveting novels on battles for power

The Mark and the Void

Winner of the Everyman Wodehouse Prize 2016 
 
A comic masterpiece about love, art, greed and the banking crisis, by the Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Bee Sting 
 
‘Hugely entertainingly [and] read-the-whole-page-again funny . . . The best novel I have reviewed this side of the Atlantic’ Observer 
 
Meet Claude: an investment-bank drone longing for something more meaningful. Marooned in soggy Dublin, he yearns for art, philosophy, and a steady girlfriend. You could call him a modern-day everyman – or just another lonely banker. 
 
Now meet Paul: struggling novelist, strip-club enthusiast, pioneer of not-entirely-legal internet start-ups. Paul is willing to stoop to any level in pursuit of the riches he knows he deserves. You could call him a troubled genius – or a shameless crook. 
 
Here are two men with something missing from their lives. they might just be able to help each other out of a big hole. Or their friendship might be the most disastrous thing to hit Dublin since the banking crash. As Paul’s get-rich-quick schemes blow up in his face, and the global economy goes missing in action, will Claude be able to save the day, get the girl, and finally become the hero of his own story? 
 
‘Brilliant, intricately entertaining . . . This novel’s arrival deserves a trumpeting fanfare’ Sunday Independent 
 
‘A comic classic from one of the most gifted novelists of his generation. Funny, angry and unputdownable’ Daily Express

Effervescent prose . . . [It] takes on the crackle of a thriller [and] wears its anger over the global financial crisis with a beguilingly, deceptively light touch

People always tell me 'If you love Paul Murray so much, why don't you marry him?' Now thanks to recent legislation in his native Ireland, I finally can. And so should you, reader. The Mark and the Void not only monetizes the death of the novel, but makes us believe in its resurrection. Praise the Lord for Paul Murray's big brain and tender heart

The Mark and the Void is so sensationally good . . . it takes the global financial crisis by its throat, and shakes it into giving birth to a wild, intelligent, angry, witty, uproariously funny, devastating novel

The Mark and the Void is just as funny [as Skippy Dies] , though perhaps with an even deeper sense of alienation at its heart

Paul Murray has done the impossible: he's written a novel about international finance that is a hilarious page-turner with a beating human heart

The Mark and the Void is Murray's best book yet - a wildly ambitious, state-of-the-nation novel, and a scabrously funny yet deeply humane satire on the continuing fall-out of the biggest financial crisis in 75 years. Think Bonfire of the Vanities with a heart

Paul Murray was born in Dublin in 1975 and is the author of An Evening of Long Goodbyes, Skippy Dies, The Mark and the Void and The Bee Sting. An Evening of Long Goodbyes was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award and nominated for the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award. Skippy Dies was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and longlisted for the Booker Prize. The Mark and the Void won the Everyman Wodehouse Prize. The Bee Sting won the Nero Book of the Year Award and the An Post Irish Book of the Year, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Writers’ Prize for Fiction and the Kirkus Prize for Fiction. Paul Murray lives in Dublin.

Meet Claude: an investment-bank drone longing for something more meaningful. Marooned in soggy Dublin, he yearns for art, philosophy, and a steady girlfriend. You could call him a modern-day everyman – or just another lonely banker. 
 
Now meet Paul: struggling novelist, strip-club enthusiast, pioneer of not-entirely-legal internet start-ups. Paul is willing to stoop to any level in pursuit of the riches he knows he deserves. You could call him a troubled genius – or a shameless crook. 
 
Here are two men with something missing from their lives. they might just be able to help each other out of a big hole. Or their friendship might be the most disastrous thing to hit Dublin since the banking crash. As Paul’s get-rich-quick schemes blow up in his face, and the global economy goes missing in action, will Claude be able to save the day, get the girl, and finally become the hero of his own story?

Skippy Dies

Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2010 
 
'A triumph. Brimful of wit and narrative energy' Sunday Times 
 
'Novels rarely come as funny and as moving as this. One of the finest comic novels written anywhere' Irish Times 
 
Ruprecht Van Doren is an overweight genius whose hobbies include very difficult maths and the Search of Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. Daniel 'Skippy' Juster is his roommate. In the grand old Dublin institution that is Seabrook College for Boys, nobody pays either of them much attention. But when Skippy falls for Lori, the frisbee-playing siren from the girls' school next door, suddenly all kinds of people take an interest - including Carl, part-time drug-dealer and official school psychopath. . . 
 
A tragic comedy of epic sweep and dimension, Skippy Dies scours the corners of the human heart and wrings every drop of pathos, humour and hopelessness out of life, love, Robert Graves, mermaids, M-theory, and everything in between. 
 
'An unforgettably exuberant saga set in an Irish boys' school. The insulting repartee is Shakespearean, the minor characters hilarious, and Murray captures the fleeting joys and lasting sorrows of adolescence perfectly' Daily Telegraph 
 
'The sprawling brilliance of Paul Murray's darkly comic second novel works on many different levels... When you finish the last page, you may be tempted to start all over again' Metro

Savagely funny, brimful of wit, energy, poetry and vision, unflaggingly entertaining. A triumph

One of the most enjoyable, funny and moving reads of this year. A rare tragicomedy that's both genuinely tragic and genuinely comic

Darkly comic, dazzles, every line drips ideas for fun. Unputdownably funny, captivating. A masterpiece

Ambitious, wise, funny, fiercely intelligent. The beauty of this cynical, hopeful, beautifully written book is that it builds a detailed world to explore life, the universe and everything

Hilarious, heartbreaking, totally engrossing. A triumph

Noisy, hilarious, tragic, endlessly inventive, plain brilliant. A carnival of a novel

Novels rarely come as funny and as moving as this utterly brilliant 
exploration of teenhood and the anticlimax of becoming an adult . . . Skippy Dies is intuitive, truthful and one of the finest comic novels written anywhere. Dies? Never! Skippy lives

I loved Skippy Dies . . . three novels fused into one ignited tragicomic tour de force

Skippy Dies is one great high-octane fizz bang of a book

A comic epic. Murray is a brilliant comic writer, but also humane and touching, and he captures the misery and elation, joy and anxiety of teenage life. A brilliant depiction of the heaven and hell of male adolescence

Murray's writing has earned a place in the contemporary international canon . . . Murray's characters are so three-dimensionally drawn and brought to such vivid life that they may haunt your dreams

Paul Murray was born in Dublin in 1975 and is the author of An Evening of Long Goodbyes, Skippy Dies, The Mark and the Void and The Bee Sting. An Evening of Long Goodbyes was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award and nominated for the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award. Skippy Dies was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and longlisted for the Booker Prize. The Mark and the Void won the Everyman Wodehouse Prize. The Bee Sting won the Nero Book of the Year Award and the An Post Irish Book of the Year, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Writers&rsquo; Prize for Fiction and the Kirkus Prize for Fiction. Paul Murray lives in Dublin.

Ruprecht Van Doren is an overweight genius whose hobbies include very difficult maths and the Search of Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. Daniel 'Skippy' Juster is his roommate. In the grand old Dublin institution that is Seabrook College for Boys, nobody pays either of them much attention. But when Skippy falls for Lori, the frisbee-playing siren from the girls' school next door, suddenly all kinds of people take an interest - including Carl, part-time drug-dealer and official school psychopath. . . 
 
A tragic comedy of epic sweep and dimension, Skippy Dies scours the corners of the human heart and wrings every drop of pathos, humour and hopelessness out of life, love, Robert Graves, mermaids, M-theory, and everything in between.

The Bee Sting

THE MULTI AWARD-WINNING NOVEL FROM ONE OF OUR GREATEST LIVING COMEDIC WRITERS 
 
'A tragicomic triumph. You won't read a sadder, truer, funnier novel this year' Guardian____________ 
 
The Barnes family are in trouble.Until recently they ran the biggest business in town, now they’re teetering on the brink of bankruptcy – and that’s just the start of their problems. Dickie and Imelda’s marriage is hanging by a thread; straight-A student Cass is careening off the rails; PJ is hopelessly in debt to the school bully.Meanwhile the ghosts of old mistakes are rising out of the past to meet them, but everyone’s too wrapped up in the present to see the danger looming . . .____________ 
 
'Generous, immersive, sharp-witted and devastating; the sort of novel that becomes a friend for life' Financial Times 
 
‘Paul Murray [is] the undisputed reigning champion of epic Irish tragicomedy’ Spectator 
 
‘An instant classic’ Washington Post 
 
‘[An] astute, remorselessly funny novel’ Daily Mirror 
 
‘A wagyu steak of a novel . . . A classic in the mode of The Corrections’ The Times____________WINNER OF THE NERO BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION 2023 
WINNER OF THE SKY ARTS AWARD FOR LITERATURE 2024 
WINNER OF AN POST IRISH BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2023

It can't be overstated how purely pleasurable The Bee Sting is to read. Murray's brilliant new novel, about a rural Irish clan, posits the author as Dublin's answer to Jonathan Franzen . . . A 650-page slab of compulsive high-grade entertainment, The Bee Sting oozes pathos while being very funny to boot . . . Murray's observational gifts and A-game phrase-making render almost every page - every line, it sometimes seems - abuzz with fresh and funny insights . . . At its core this is a novel concerned with the ties that bind, secrets and lies, love and loss. They're all here, brought to life with captivating vigour in a first-class performance to cherish

The Bee Sting is the finest novel that Murray has yet written and will surely be one of the books of 2023 . . . It bears comparison to the brilliant comic writer Jonathan Coe... But Murray is his own writer, capable of keeping a multi-faceted and compulsive plot moving along with alacrity and confidence, while seamlessly blending drama, comedy and heartbreak... For 13 years, Paul Murray has been best known as the author of Skippy Dies. That, I suspect, is about to change

Immersive, brilliantly structured, beautifully written, so dense yet so compelling, [and] as laugh-out-loud funny as it is deeply disturbing . . . The Bee Sting is as ambitious as anything that has gone before, but with a focus and shape that grants it great depth as well as breadth. Seriously, all you need is this, your suntan lotion and a few days off work and you're good to go . . . I didn't see the plot twists coming. And they keep on coming, And coming again . . . I began with an ovation. I'll end abruptly, and in awe... Paul Murray, the undisputed reigning champion of epic Irish tragicomedy, has done it again

The most enjoyable new novel I came across this year. A sprawling, Franzen-esque saga about the Barnes family in Ireland recovering from the 2008 financial crisis, it’s an amazing piece of realist fiction, full-bodied, multi-narrative; a huge swing by Murray

A triumph. The Bee Sting deserves all the praise I am heaping on it. It is generous, immersive, sharp-witted and devastating; the sort of novel that becomes a friend for life

Expertly foreshadowed and so intricately put together, a brilliantly funny, deeply sad portrait of an Irish family in crisis . . . Murray is triumphantly back on home turf - troubled adolescents, regretful adults, secrets signposted and exquisitely revealed, each line soaked in irony ranging from the gentle to the savage . . . We live though hundreds of pages on tenterhooks, and the suspense and revelations keep coming until the end [...] He is brilliant on fathers and sons, sibling rivalry, grief, self-sabotage and self-denial, as well as the terrible weakness humans have for magical thinking... A tragicomic triumph, you won't read a sadder, truer, funnier novel this year

This bumper novel is already gaining plaudits as the book of the summer, and if it's a meaty, heart punching, expertly executed family saga you need this August, then you can stop the search now . . . Murray delivers scarcely a duff sentence in a 600-page novel that's pure unadulterated pleasure. It's been compared to Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections; I'd argue it's better than that

No one writes tragicomedy as good as this . . . Both brilliant entertainment and a penetrating look at the human condition, as heavy with pathos as it is rich with humour. And if 650 pages asks a lot of the reader, in this case it more than delivers

Delightfully rackety, raucously funny... The Bee Sting is on a par with Skippy Dies, Murray's most beloved book, and certainly exceeds it in ambition. A masterpiece

Murray is a natural storyteller who knows when to withhold, to indulge, to surprise. He specialises, like Dickens, in lengthy sagas that are mammoth in scope, generous with detail and backstory, flush with humour and colourful characters, all of it steeped in social realism . . . Ambitious, expansive, hugely entertaining tragicomic fiction

Carefully paced, brilliantly convincing and helped along by plenty of subtle satire . . . A huge, marbled wagyu steak of a novel that ranges confidently from humane to horrifying. It's a classic family saga in the mode of The Corrections or The Sound and the Fury . . . Murray delights in taking a stock type - the sullen pubescent, the frazzled mother - and exploding it with ambiguity and empathy . . . An immensely enjoyable piece of expert craftsmanship

This novel is as generous, expansive, and glorious as a cathedral, as intimate as pillow-talk, and as funny and heartbreaking as nothing you've read before. Paul Murray may just be the most spellbinding storyteller writing today. A magisterial piece of work

Neel Mukherjee, author of 'The Lives of Others'

Bold [and] expansive . . . Paul Murray is consistently inventive, observant and funny. He is on intimate terms with this preteen boy, this teenage girl, this lost middle-aged man and this semi-educated woman, and he knows how to make them vivid . . . The pages turn rapidly as farce and tragedy converge, the latter threatening to get the upper hand

Utterly absorbing . . . Every perfectly tooled sentence slips down as cleanly as an ice-cold Negroni

[The Bee Sting] reads like an instant classic . . . Murray is a fantastically witty and empathetic writer, and he dazzles by somehow bringing the great sprawling randomness of life to glamorously choreographed climaxes. He is essentially interested in the moral conflicts of our lives, and he handles his characters and their failings with heartbreaking tenderness

Murray’s writing is pure joy — propulsive, insightful and seeded with hilarious observations . . . Through the Barneses’ countless personal dramas, Murray explores humanity’s endless contradictions: How brutal and beautiful life is. How broken and also full of potential. How endlessly fraught and persistently promising. Whether or not we can ever truly change our course, the hapless Barneses will keep you hoping, even after you turn the novel’s last page

A family lurches into financial and emotional crisis in full view of judgmental neighbours in this astute, remorselessly funny novel about how people are invariably more complex than they first appear . . . Murray tackles some of the biggest issues facing our society in a thoughtful, tragicomic novel exploring smalltown society and social class

The overall tapestry Murray weaves is not one of desolation but of hope. This is a book that showcases one family’s incredible love and resilience even as their world crumbles around them

Fluid, funny and clever, exceptionally smartly structured . . . There's laughter in every other line, but there's also a compassion and a midlife wisdom at work

Funny, dark, moving and deeply humane. It's also driven by an inexorable tragic force, and Murray's intricate narrative dexterity makes it very easy to keep turning all those hundreds of pages

Observer (Summer Reads - Mark O’Connell)

This epic, many-layered tragicomedy of an Irish family in crisis is as pleasurable to read as it is emotionally devastating

Breathtaking, blackly comic, Murray's style is entirely and distinctively his own . . . Handling the plot as if it were a Rubik cube, [he] gives each character their voice in a carousel of first-person accounts, tracking backwards and into the present . . . The Bee Sting is an immersion in the tragedy of what-might-have-been

The tale of a dysfunctional family trying to hold things together. It's a thing of beauty, a novel that will fill your heart

Observer, 'Fiction to look out for in 2023'

The Bee Sting has resulted in Murray being heralded "Dublin's Jonathan Franzen" . . . No one does bittersweet comic novels quite like Murray - fans of his 2010 boarding school comedy Skippy Dies will be aching to get their hands on this

The book I’ve recommended most this year – and had the most enthusiastic feedback about, a whopping 656 pages later – is without doubt Paul Murray’s Booker-shortlisted tragicomedy, The Bee Sting . . . combines freewheeling hilarity with savage irony, surprise reveals and generations-deep sadness; it offers the immersive pleasures that perhaps only a fat family saga can bring

I experienced just about every possible human emotion while reading The Bee Sting, and at an intensity I have not felt with a work of fiction for a long time. Its ambition and scale are astonishing, and as a sheer technical feat of storytelling it is remarkable. Reading it, I was constantly reminded of what the novel as an artform is capable of, and what it is for. It might be a bold claim to make, of the author of Skippy Dies, that this new book is the best thing Paul Murray has ever done - but I'm making it anyway, because it's true

Mark O'Connell, author of 'To Be A Machine'

The idea of being swept up and spat out by falsehoods runs through much of Murray's work . . . There are storylines about doomsday preppers and local GAA teams; themes of class, economic collapse, ecological catastrophe . . . Murray's conversations have an expansive tendency. A single thread can lead him outwards in a web of connections, metaphors, jokes, before he lands smoothly back on the point

One of the finest — and funniest — novels of 2023, this Booker-shortlisted tale of a troubled Irish family takes their financial, sexual and existential struggles and turns them into riotous comedy

Murray gives us a capacious story of one Irish family that is entertaining, heartbreaking and surprising - few of the characters turn out to be exactly who you thought they'd be

I'm looking forward to Paul Murray's new family saga, The Bee Sting; he's such a sharp and funny writer

Paul Murray is my favourite young Irish novelist and The Bee Sting confirms all of his talents. Settle in for a hilarious whirlwind of a familial socioeconomic misadventure as only Murray would write it

Gary Shteyngart, author of 'Super Sad True Love Story'

Every sentence in Paul Murray's brilliant family drama The Bee Sting crackles with wit and ingenuity

A coruscating return for a novelist who's been keeping us waiting for something special since 2010's Skippy Dies . . . a tragicomedy that never stints on great jokes - even at its saddest

The Bee Sting is far and away the most entertaining of the novels on this year’s Booker shortlist, a fat slab of joyous readability – but which doesn’t stint on emotional depth

Paul Murray was robbed when it came to the Booker this year: his saga about a family scrambling for survival in recession blasted Ireland in 2008 is one of the novels of the year. Told from the perspective of four members of the Barnes family, and unspooling back in time to reveal a host of buried sentences, this effortlessly enjoyable novel overflows with human detail

One of the best novels of the year . . . a compelling, thought-provoking tragic-comic family drama, told in multiple voices, and set in Ireland. The characters, of all ages, are memorable and convincing, the plot is a cracker and it will keep you gripped, amused and provoked throughout 656 brilliant pages

This propulsive, humane, thrillingly unpredictable story of a family in free-fall was robbed at this year’s Booker . . . bold, original . . . Murray gives a totally fresh perspective on subjects from abuse to money, sexuality, love, climate disaster and violence, while conjuring characters who leap off the page

A tour de force of fiction . . . Murray expertly gives us each family member’s perspective of the same events – with flashbacks unravelling an intricate story of betrayal, crime and lust. Profound on the human condition, utterly gripping and peppered with comedy, your giftee will love it just as much as our reviewer did

[A] wonderful saga . . . [The Bee Sting] brilliantly explores how our self-deceptions ultimately catch up with us, and is at once hilarious and heartbreaking

A first-class piece of immersive fiction – sharp-witted and clear-eyed but big-hearted – that doesn’t feel as if it’s in retreat from reality

I’m going to climb on the log-rolling bandwagon by recommending Paul Murrays achingly tragicomic The Bee Sting. Few, if any, Irish writers have ever succeeded in sketching contemporary midlands Ireland in such queasy yet humane detail. Himself a Dub, Murray brings a rare outsiders eye to an unfashionable and overlooked milieu

Triumphant . . . the best sort of holiday reading: engrossingly long, incredibly funny, impossibly sad

[The Bee Sting] has been a revelation: I loved every second of reading this. I found myself reaching for it on tubes and buses, stealing five minutes to read it as I waited for a coffee, staying up late to read in bed, despite my near-religious sleeping schedule. It has been a pleasure to read, and to say that it’s changed my outlook on reading, my choices, and tastes, would be an understatement. The Bee Sting has allowed me to re-evaluate my prior notions, and to get out of my own way for discovering new fiction

I’m a sucker for a tragicomic family saga [and] Paul Murray has produced a masterpiece of the form. The Bee Sting is a mosaic-like account of one family’s misery when their car business hits the skids in post-crash Ireland . . . It’s an engrossing (and hilarious) story of blackmail and betrayal, thwarted romance and freak accidents

A family lurches into financial and emotional crisis in full view of judgmental neighbours in this astute, remorselessly funny novel that switches between survivalist father Dickie, spendaholic housewife Imelda, surly teenager Cass and her loner brother PJ.

Murray balances humour with poignancy and makes each voice distinct, creating a believable, absorbing picture of a family in crisis.

Good Housekeeping, 'Your Summer Reads Sorted'

The Bee Sting grabbed me by the scruff off the neck and wouldn’t let go. Over 600 pages the reader is put through the emotional wringer; it’s thoughtful, heartbreaking and at times bleak but it’s also incredibly funny

Daily Express, 'Closing a chapter on 2024'

A well-to-do Irish family falls apart in this funny, corrosive and poignant novel . . . It’s an unputdownable family saga

The Times, '100 best summer reads for 2024'

Funny, lyrical and heartbreaking, Paul Murray's Booker nominated family saga is perfect Betwixmas reading

The Standard, 'Best Christmas Gift Books'

At over 600 pages, The Bee Sting may not appear the friendliest looking of reads . . . but don’t let the length put you off – this book earns every page . . . A tragicomedy, this novel is expansive in reach and has a climax that will stay with you long after the final page

This is probably the most conventionally satisfying novel of 2023 . . . It is so engrossing that you will always want to be reading it and after you have finished it the characters stay with you. Murray is ostensibly a comic novelist, but he’s dealing in laughter in the dark by the end of this novel, which tackles economic uncertainty, climate crisis and the secrets that can define a family without some of its members realising

Paul Murray is a confident, stylish writer: he convincingly evokes a teenage girl’s rage, a boy’s fear, a father’s secrets and a mother’s disappointments and grief

This Booker-shortlisted tale of a troubled Irish family takes their tragedy and turns it into comedy . . . A symphonic family saga with an explosive, over-the-top denouement

The Times, 'The best paperback novels 2024'

Funny and painful with ghosts from the past and spectres from the future

The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie's once-lucrative car dealership is going under, and while his wife is frantically selling off her jewellery on eBay, he's busy building an apocalypse-proof bunker in the woods. Meanwhile their teenage daughter is veering off the rails, in thrall to a toxic friendship, and her little brother is falling into the black hole of the internet... 
 
Where did it all go wrong? The present is in crisis but the causes lie deep in the past. How long can this unhappy family wait before they have to face the truth? And if the story has already been written, is there still time to find a happy ending?

Paul Murray

This is the story of Charles Hythloday and the heroic squandering of the family inheritance. Featuring drinking, greyhound racing, vanishing furniture, more drinking, old movies, assorted Dublin lowlife, eviction and the perils of community theatre, Paul Murray's debut novel is a tour de force of comedic writing wrapped in an honest-to-goodness tale of a man - and a family - living in denial.

Paul Murray

Books by Paul Murray

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10 must-read books by Irish authors

Extract: The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

7 riveting novels on battles for power

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