A Question of taste with Kevin Barry

Limerick-born author Kevin Barry will read at Cork City Library on Tuesday, April 19, as part of Cork World Book Fest. He will read his ‘Cork’ story from Winter Pages, the first volume of the arts anthology he put together with Olivia Smith.

Best recent book: Not a new book but I read a James Salter novel, Light Years, last month and I was very much taken with it. It’s a very sad story about very beautiful people who apparently have it all going for them. It has great style and it’s very affecting — you think about it a lot afterwards.

Best recent film: I had a hoot with Hail Caeser, the newie from the Coen Brothers. I’m a bit hot-and-cold with them, I don’t love everything, but this is one of their pure, play-it-for-laughs efforts, and it’s enormous fun. A ’40s Hollywood setting, with demented old movie stars, song-and-dance routines, the works.