If the wine fights the sauce, swap the wine — not the recipe.

Reminder! Rosé Redemption Night is this Wednesday at 7pm in Chapters. Books and wine. A natural pairing, really. Both lead to strong opinions, poor financial restraint and sentences beginning, “Actually, I’ve always thought…” Tickets via Eventbrite: www.eventbrite.ie/e/...

Some authors arrive holding a book about Civil War Dublin, betrayal, executions, prison escapes & national trauma & are still the smiliest person in the shop. Many of Our Best Lie There by Derek Molyneux & Darren Kelly, published by Mercier Press. Irish history. Dark. Gripping. Oddly beaming.

Bloomsday is coming, so naturally we’re thinking about Joyce. Nora by Nuala O’Connor is one of my favourite books about Joyce because it has the audacity, intelligence & extremely good manners to be about Nora Barnacle & she is fabulous. Nuala O'Connor New Island Books

A good book never says, “Where have you been?” It just waits patiently while you make several terrible life choices and then come crawling back.

If books could talk, mine would absolutely form a tenants’ association and complain about overcrowding, unstable stacking practices, and the arrival of yet another “just in case” novel.

Quoting other people is not pretentious. It is simply admitting that someone dead, French and difficult got there first.

Rafi and Rita is here and it is a deeply serious work about sibling rivalry, giraffes and the universal desire to be declared the tallest! By Jarvis, illustrated by Chris Judge, published by Walker Books. Tiny readers. Big feelings. Extremely tall drama - it is a joy!

A good book does not just show you another world. It hands you new eyes and then has the nerve to expect you to use them.

It was the perfect book for the day that was in it - I sat on the bed and read it from start to finish - then I wrote about it & couldn’t stop! chaptersbookstore.com/blogs/news/l...

We were only talking about Rory Carroll in Chapters over the last few days. Mick & Philip both had A Rebel and a Traitor in their recently-reading piles, Charlie had Killing Thatcher, & I had already added this to my TBR. History, but make it a manhunt - one you will want to discuss with otheres!

Kathryn Stockett came into Chapters. Yes. THE Kathryn Stockett. Author of The Help. I had no idea she was in Ireland, because obviously I do not move in such exalted circles - she signed lots & lots of new copies of The Calamity Club AND our secondhand copies of The Help. This is class!

As a famously terrible baker (cook, anything in the kitchen), I tested Shane Smith’s “just follow the recipe” theory from Loaf Tin Bakes. I made the carrot cake loaf - it was beyond barely edible, it was tasty! No, you can’t see it - I haven't mastered edible AND aesthetic. This is witchcraft!

There is a huge difference between buying another book and finding the one that clearly had your name on it spiritually. Please keep up!

Tomorrow, Thursday 4th June we will be closely early at 5.45pm! Open as usual on Friday, 9am - 7pm!

Books are very good at giving us new eyes, which is inconvenient because then we have to notice things, feel things and become slightly harder to live with.

Every unread book on your shelf believed in you once... then you walked into a bookshop and ruined everything ... I actually struggle with this ... I feel like I am cheating on books I promised to read next 🤦‍♀️

Every book bought today supports writers, bookshops, civilisation and the beautiful lie that you will read it before buying another one.

The Purple Sticker is basically the bookshop circle of life, but with more store credit and fewer lions! Buy a new Purple Sticker title from Chapters, read it within a month, trade it back in and get 50% of what you paid in store credit ... which means lovely new books in Secondhand!! 1/2

It is not chaos. It is a complex intertextual arrangement involving vibes, guilt, ambition and a paperback you meant to give back in 2019, but got too attached to the cover1

It is not an addiction. It is a long-term, paper-based emotional entanglement with excellent cover design - but I do admit to being a little flightly re a good cover!

The Optera Journal, created with The Ricky Hatton Foundation, with 10% of proceeds supporting its mental health work is in now. 90 days of structured journaling, transformational drills & three phases of self-discovery for anyone trying to get slightly less at the mercy of their own brain.

We have second-hand drama on the tables. Not shop drama. Literary drama. The good kind. Wilde, McDonagh, O’Neill, Camus, Anouilh, Murphy, McPherson, Hare and friends. Ideal for anyone who thinks a quiet evening should involve betrayal, repression and stage directions!

Shane Ross called in to sign copies of RTÉ: Saints, Scholars and Scandals. As always: dapper, articulate, gentlemanly… & somehow still the authorial equivalent of someone quietly pulling a thread until an institution starts making worried noises! Our rebel readers will enjoy this one!

Books are proof that solitude does not have to be lonely. Sometimes it has chapters, footnotes and a protagonist making terrible decisions so you don’t have to.

Now available in Ireland!

Today is always a really hard anniversary day for me, that I was absolutely dreading … but the proof of Stations by Louise Kennedy arrived home & I am going to let a book work its magic - thank god for writers.

Quoting other people is not pretentious. It is simply admitting that someone dead, French and difficult got there first.

A good book never says, “Where have you been?” It just waits patiently while you make several terrible life choices and then come crawling back.

Great to see that Leonard and Hungry Paul by @ronanhession.bsky.social Is now on TV in Spain. Marvellous. @bbcworldbookclub.bsky.social @newyorker.com @thebookseller.com @rsliterature.bsky.social @chaptersbookstore.bsky.social

We tried being subtle once. Terrible for sales. Excellent for literary fiction. Mixed results overall.

I have hope for the future!

Come in for one book. Leave emotionally stronger, intellectually nourished and physically lopsided from the weight of your tote bag.

We tried being subtle once. Terrible for sales. Excellent for literary fiction. Mixed results overall.

All welcome tonight at 6.30pm for the launch of Enemies of the State with Fergus Whelan, Donal Fallon & Tommy Graham talking Richard Musgrave, the 1798 Rebellion and Irish history. A glass of wine, sharp minds, Irish history & the sun shining - it doesn't get much better!

The magnificent Dermot Bolger was in signing Imperfect Beings & because he went to the same school as Mick, we are now all being very brave about Mick’s sudden Northside literary glow-up! A brilliant new short story collection from New Island Books

Doireann Ní Ghríofa came in to sign copies of Said the Dead &we did our very best to behave like professional adults in a bookshop rather than people quietly losing their minds over one of the most extraordinary writers working today. This book has gone straight under the skin of Chapters' readers.

Come in for one book. Leave emotionally stronger, intellectually nourished and physically lopsided from the weight of your tote bag.

My novel, Experts in a Dying Field, is OUT IN TWO WEEKS, June 11th. Here are some nice things people have said about it

Justice for rosé! Too long dismissed as “just the pink one”, rosé is getting her redemption arc on Wed 10th June at 7pm with Lorcan O’Brien! The last wine night, the wine flowed & the spittoons went untouched. Come alone. Come with pals. Come to rethink rosé! Tickets: www.eventbrite.ie/e/...

A good book does not just show you another world. It hands you new eyes and then has the nerve to expect you to use them.

“I’ll remember the title,” I said, confidently, before remembering only that it was blue, sad, had a tree on the cover and possibly a woman looking away from a window.

This is your sign to buy the book. We would make it more subtle, but honestly, where has subtlety ever got a reader with no shelf space?

A gym for the imagination. A threat to your tote bag. A surprisingly effective upper-body workout if you visit Secondhand or stop by the Bargain Tables ...

Every book bought today supports writers, bookshops, civilisation and the beautiful lie that you will read it before buying another one.

“I’ll remember the title” is how every reader ends up describing a book as "blue, or perhaps dark purple, but it has a dragon ... or maybe a castle ... or mayby a castle and a dragon" ...

This is your sign to buy the book. We would make it more subtle, but honestly, where has subtlety ever got a reader with no shelf space?

Books are very good at giving us new eyes, which is inconvenient because then we have to notice things, feel things and become slightly harder to live with.

A gym for the imagination. A threat to your tote bag. A surprisingly effective upper-body workout if you visit Secondhand or stop by the Bargain Tables ...