My life in books: ‘Alphabetised shelves are a must. I get anxious if Ican’t locate a book’
Martina Devlin’s latest novel, ‘Glorious Monsters’, published by Lilliput Press, is out now.
Picture: Steve Humphreys
Martina Devlin is an awarding-winning novelist and journalist originally from Omagh, Co Tyrone.
Mary O’Donnell’s , set in the borderlands during the pandemic lockdown.
It is a tender, courageous novel which explores memory and its inconsistencies, caring for an elderly parent, the mother-daughter dynamic and female sexuality.
by Doireann Ní Ghríofa is mesmerising and utterly immersive: readers are taken inside the archives of a disused Cork mental asylum and meet some of the forgotten women once incarcerated there.
by James Joyce. It’s clever, experimental, ambitious and poetic but I far prefer his short story collection, , especially that masterpiece final story, , with its emotional depth and epiphany.
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, first in a series by Lucy M Boston, a story about finding your place in the world.
A lonely seven-year-old boy goes to live with his great-grandmother in a remote manor house, and encounters children from the 1600s who once lived there.
Also, by Benedict Kiely, an outstanding piece of Troubles literature with a prophetic plot. He was from my hometown of Omagh.
My father pointed him out to me as a child. I thought if he can be a writer, maybe so can I.
by James Rebanks: part memoir, part hymn to nature.
The author spends a season on a Norwegian island, just below the Arctic Circle, as observer, assistant, and ultimately friend to an ageing ‘duck woman’ guarding the wild eider ducks nesting there.
She teaches him how to build nests to attract ducks, protect them from predators and harvest their down, the latter a tradition passed down from the Vikings. A meditative, life-affirming read.
by Mary Costello because I had stopped reading short stories and this collection returned me to them.
She is admirably sparing in her use of language and the detail she shares about characters’ lives, yet never sacrifices emotional depth to this pared-back style.
Artist Colin Davidson’s . Each time I look at his portraits I see something new.
His Silent Testimony series is his defining work: a group of 18 individuals who lost close family members during the Troubles.
It is magisterial and humbling — Davidson conveys their grief and resilience through the medium of paint.
by Jung Chang, a memoir spanning a century and featuring three generations of Chinese women — the author, her mother, and grandmother.
It humanises history, opening a window into Chairman Mao’s regime. I was charmed by Jung in person at two Irish book festivals this summer. She is a born storyteller.
Guillermo del Toro’s version of Mary Shelley’s Gothic masterpiece ; his Creature is closer to her version than others.
Bookshops — it’s essential to support them or they will close. I have a particular fondness for independents including Chapters in Dublin, Little Acorns in Derry, and Raven Books in Blackrock, Co Dublin.
Alphabetised shelves are a must. I get anxious if I can’t locate a book.
Always tea, sometimes with biscuits or chocolate.
Jane Eyre because she insists the world doesn’t belong to the rich, beautiful, and well-connected. Charlotte Bronte has her say: “Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless?”
Also, she reverses traditional gender roles and rescues Mr Rochester (I’d have left him to fester).
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