Irish writer, Kevin Barry, who was the only Irish author on the longlist for his novel Night Boat to Tangier, did not make the shortlist.

Congratulations to Kevin Barry whose latest book, Night Boat To Tangier, has been longlisted for the Booker Prize, a prestigious award open to writers of any nationality, writing in English and published in the UK or Ireland. It is worth £50,000 to the winner.

The sacking of rugby star Israel Folau for expressing his religious beliefs could end up in the Supreme Court and could have wide-ranging implications, writes TP O’Mahony.

Marian Keyes, Eimear McBride, and Edna O’Brien join JK Rowling and Harper Lee on a list of the 100 essential books by female writers from the past 100 years, according to a new poll.

Liam Ruiséals: I’m sad it’s going. It was the school books that got me in and then the exam papers. Round about September, the booklets of past Junior Cert and Leaving Cert papers would take over a section in the corner, says Colm O’Regan

American author George Saunders has been handed this year's Man Booker Prize for his first full-length novel.

Ireland is the only western democracy to have introduced a blasphemy law in the 21st century.

When Molly Keane came to selecting the best person to write her biography, she didn’t have to look very far, writes Marjorie Brennan

EVERYTHING is very plain and modern now,” a dying man tells the author Jack London roughly halfway through Minds of Winter, warning the writer against the gothic, supernatural excesses of the yarn he is spinning in a hospital ward.

SOME of the brightest lights of contemporary fiction celebrate the timelessness of William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes in a collection of short stories to mark the 400th anniversary of both men’s deaths.

Bernard-Henri Lévy warns that we are all in a state of intellectual emergency, left and right, and that we should unite to face up to Islamic extremism.

SALMAN Rushdie’s tenth novel opens in Arab Spain in 1195, when disgraced court physician and philosopher Ibn Rushd takes in the mysterious 16-year-old orphan Dunia.

WHEN you think of Sue Perkins, the English broadcaster who has Enid Blyton levels of spunky jolliness, you might think, ‘ah yes, cake’.

WHAT a conundrum. What a bother. What a pickle and a palaver. Frankly, we need to talk about Kazuo.

Lars Vilks, the Swedish cartoonist understood to have been a primary target of one of last weekend’s deadly Copenhagen shootings, has rounded on Danish police, whom he claimed had vastly underestimated the terror threat posed to the city.

The number of humanist ceremonies taking place in Ireland is on the rise, with more than 100,000 people attending such events last year.

The attacks in Paris last week, far from silencing debate or dissent, have in fact led to a greater than ever belief in freedom of speech among the public, writes Dan Buckley

Novelist Salman Rushdie has spoken out against the threat of “religious totalitarianism” in the wake of the murderous attack in Paris.

Irish authors Joseph O’Neill and Niall Williams are in the running for this year’s Man Booker Prize.

Paul Auster

Reilly spies new source of health funding

Bleeding Edge

She’s married to the most powerful man in the world and is used to eating haute cuisine with heads of state.

IS THERE any point in celebrating ‘being Irish’ anymore? As we approach another St Patrick’s Day, and don our ‘Kiss me, I’m Irish’ t-shirts and our shamrock-bedecked silly hats, what on earth does it all mean? Does taking part in this ritual have any actual bearing on our lives especially since our economic sovereignty is a thing of the past, asks sociologist Ethel Crowley.

IT’S the fields of waving wildflowers that are puzzling.

EL James's bestselling sensation 'Fifty Shades Of Grey' has been named one of the books of the year at a literary awards ceremony.

Mortality

I WOULD really like to make use of this column space to express my horror at the international violence caused by some stupid film made by an unknown muppet in California.

'The Satanic Verses' author Salman Rushdie said it would be “difficult” to publish the book now because of the “climate of fear” that exists.

Hundreds of Pakistanis protesting an anti-Islam video broke through a barricade near the US consulate in the southern city of Karachi yesterday, sparking clashes with police in which one demonstrator was killed and more than a dozen injured.

A religious foundation in Iran has increased a reward for killing British author Salman Rushdie to $3.3m from $2.8m in response to alleged insults to the Prophet Muhammad, according to newspaper reports.

Robbie Williams has said that he is scared about becoming a father.

After six albums, Josh Ritter has written a novel, the acclaimed Bright’s Passage, says Carl Dixon

Salman Rushdie has dismissed demands by an influential Islamic seminary in India to stay out of the country.

TRIBUTES poured in yesterday for journalist and atheist intellectual Christopher Hitchens, who died aged 62.

The British-born author and journalist Christopher Hitchens has died. He is best known for his provocative best-seller 'God is Not Great'.

TWITTER has revealed that Charlie Sheen and the Egyptian uprising were amongst the most popular subjects for hashtags in 2011.

BRITAIN has shut down the Iranian embassy in London and expelled all its staff, saying the storming of the British diplomatic mission in Tehran could not have taken place without some degree of consent from Iranian authorities.

Hard-line Iranian students stormed the British Embassy in Tehran today, tearing down the Union flag and throwing documents from windows in scenes reminiscent of the anger against Western powers after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Satanic Verses novelist Salman Rushdie has poked fun at Kim Kardashian in a series of tweets forming a limerick about the doomed marriage.

TRINITY College Dublin has been forced into a U-turn on controversial plans to have British National Party (BNP) leader, Nick Griffin, join a debate on immigration.

Trinity College Dublin has been forced into a U-turn on controversial plans to have British National Party (BNP) leader Nick Griffin join a debate on immigration.