Simon Carswell wins Journalist of the Year

We've heard a few rumours about some movie that was released this week in London. A very obscure adaptation of a children's book about wizards or some such? Reports were sketchy. After a lot of digging around online we came up with the author... Somone Rowling? Anyway, if you've heard the rumours too, this is the book. 

Critic and blogger Jennifer Ryan (The Lady Loves Books) appeared on TV3's Ireland AM this morning with her Summer Reading list. The books reviewed were:

The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson.

Adrian Frazier's Hollywood Irish: John Ford, Abbey Actors and the Irish Revival in Hollywood has been getting quite a bit of press since its launch last month, and is reviewed in today's Irish Examiner by Dr Val Nolan. 

It is a tragic part of our history, but as the Government has recently announced the setting up of a committee investigating the State's Role in the Magdalen Laundries, books about the topic have been getting some media attention. The best book on the subject is Ireland's Magdalen Laundries and the Nation's Architecture of Containmane by James M. Smith.
 
'Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries is an important book, written with scrupulous attention to detail and impeccably researched. This is a dark and deeply emotional subject about which James M. Smith manages to be fair-minded and calm in his judgments. It is an essential book for anyone interested in the fear and cruelty surrounding women’s sexuality in the Ireland of the recent past."
~Colm Toibin