Dalkey Book Festival

19th to 22nd June there's a lot going on in Dalkey. But it's quite expensive. Wonder how that will affect sales. I'd be more likely to go all the way to Dalkey for 3 events at a €5. Or not go at all and not pay €15. Maybe they're all loaded in Dalkey.

Highlights IMHO include:

Thursday 19th June

21:00 Robert Fisk: Echoes of 1914
The Festival Marquee €15
On the one hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of World War One, award-winning journalist, Robert Fisk, offers a personal insight into the Great War, its impact and the lessons we have and have not learned from a human catastrophe on a monumental scale. With Colm O’Mongain.

Friday 20th June
18:30 Ghostwriting with Sue Leonard and June Considine
The Magpie Inn €5

Sue Leonard recently co-wrote the number one bestseller, An Act of Love with Marie Fleming, about Marie’s extraordinary life, and her fight for the right to die with dignity. She has worked on three other books as a ghost writer, and is a freelance journalist.
June Considine has published 16 novels for adults and children and writes as a freelance journalist.  She worked on the recent bestseller Donal's Mountain – How one son Inspired a Nation with Fionnbar Walsh, father of the late Donal Walsh.
They will talk about the challenges and rewards of ghostwriting.
All proceeds will go to the Dyslexia Association.

20:30 Donal Ryan and Colm O'Regan
The Festival Marquee €12.50

Comedian , Colm O’Regan, the author of the side-splitting Irish Mammies books, shares the stage with Donal Ryan, author of The Spinning Heart (winner of The Guardian First Book Award and currently shortlisted for the Impac ) and The Thing About December.
We saw this pair perform recently in Paris and this is one not to be missed. Both writers have a brilliant knack for picking up the day-to-day details that make up ordinary people’s lives and reveal so much about the Ireland we live in today.
 

Saturday 21st June
13:15 Kirsty Wark
St Patrick's Church €12.50
Kirsty Wark, one of the UK’s most respected and well-known journalists and broadcasters has recently published her debut novel, The Legacy of Elizabeth Pringle, a multi-generational story of love and belonging set on the Scottish island of Arran. In a wide-ranging interview with Miriam O'Callaghan, she will talk about her novel, as well as her career in broadcasting, what it’s been like working on Newsnight, and other live topics from everyday sexism to Scottish independence.

19.30 Salmon Rushdie
St Patrick's Church €12.50
Rushdie is the author of eleven novels including The Satanic Verses and Midnight’s Children (which was awarded the Booker Prize in 1981 and, in 1993, was judged to be the “Booker of Bookers,” the best novel to have won that prize in its first twenty-five years).

Sunday 22nd June
12 noon John Banville
The Heritage Centre €12.50
Few writers could possibly imagine being described as ”the heir to Proust, via Nabokov” and mentioned in the same breath as Joyce, Beckett and James but John Banville is such a talent. This Booker and Kafka prize winning novelist and screen writer will explore with you his most recent novel, Ancient Light, his film adaptation of The Sea as well as Quirke. You will also have the chance to ask about his latest work penned by Benjamin Black, The Black–Eyed Blonde, a Philip Marlowe novel.

12.30 Lenny Abraham
The Festival Marquee  €10
Described by the Financial Times as "may be the best thing that ever happened to Irish cinema", one of the hottest names in European filmmaking right now Lenny Abrahamson comes to Dalkey. The award winning director of Adam and Paul, Garage, What Richard Did, and most recently Frank with Michael Fassbender, talks to Sinead Gleeson about the films he has made and adapting books for the screen, including his forthcoming film of Emma O'Donoghue's bestseller, Room. This is one for the movie lovers.

18.30 John O'Donnell
The Heritage Centre €10
John O’Donnell has been published in Ireland, England, America, Australia and New Zealand. His work has also been broadcast on RTE and BBC. Awards include the Hennessy Award for Poetry, the Ireland Funds Prize and the Seacat National Poetry Prize. He has published two previous collections Some Other Country (Bradshaw Books, 2002) and Icarus Sees His Father Fly (Dedalus Press, 2004); his latest collection On Water was published by Dedalus Press in May 2014.As a fiction writer his work has appeared in various publications, and in 2013 he was awarded the Hennessy Award for Fiction. A senior counsel, he lives and works in Dublin.