Like a lot of podcast genres — and browsing a bookshop — when it comes to book shows, it’s about finding what suits you.

In 1998, leaving university, Neil worked as an editor for a dot com travel company.

Just like the protagonist of his latest film, Pedro Almodovar admits that the weight of years gone by have had an effect on him, writes Helen Barlow

In a relatively short writing career Danielle McLaughlin has made huge strides and her latest collection, suggests Billy O’Callaghan, marks her down as a writer of exceptional perception and potential.

Best European Fiction 2014

Canadian writer — and now Nobel prize winner — Alice Munro sets her taut, acutely observed stories in the rural Ontario countryside where she grew up, focusing a stark lens on the frailties of the human condition.

Shauna Gilligan

Higher Gossip

THRILLER writer John Le Carre has asked that his name be withdrawn from the shortlist for the Man Booker International Prize, disappointing judges who said they admired his work.

British actress Julie Christie jokes that she comes out of seclusion to do a film about once a decade - and, just about as often, the Academy Award-winning actress earns an Oscar nomination for the effort.

THE organisers of the lucrative Frank O’Connor Short Story Award have criticised those short-listed for the €50,000 prize after only two of the six said they would turn up for the presentation ceremony.

SOME of the biggest names in literature are competing for the inaugural €50,000 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize, it emerged yesterday.