Connect with the DCU community through the love of reading! 

DCU will continue its popular staff book club next semester. This is the sixth book club season and what a fantastic programme there is in store. The format of the book club meeting will continue in-person across various locations on campus. Staff get an opportunity to engage in a Q&A with guests as part of these moderated events. 

As always there is no cost to join or attend, all you need are the books. Whether you borrow a copy from the library, buy your own print copy, download to your tablet, or download it on Audible, the format is up to you! The programme is developed by DCU Cultural Arts Office in partnership with DCU Library. 

The Programme

Book in February: This Plague of Souls by Mike McCormack
When: Thursday 22nd February 2024 @ 18:30
Venue: The Presidents Lounge, Albert College, Glasnevin campus 
To book: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/dcu-staff-book-club-with-mike-mccormack-tic…

Book in March: How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney
When: Thursday 28th March 2024 @ 18:30
Venue: Belvedere Library, St. Patrick's campus
To book: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/staff-book-club-with-elaine-feeney-tickets-…

Book in April: Kala by Colin Walsh
When: Thursday 25th April 2024 @ 18:30
Venue: Belvedere Library, St. Patrick's campus
To book: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/staff-book-club-with-colin-walsh-tickets-77…

Information on the books and writers featured

Book in February - This Plague of Souls by Mike McCormack 

This Plague of Souls is Mike’s first novel since his Goldsmiths Prize-winning critically acclaimed Booker-longlisted novel Solar Bones. He describes it as ‘part metaphysical thriller, part roman noir’. The story follows a man named Nealon, recently released from jail, who returns to his family home in the West of Ireland only to find an empty house. It seems the world has forgotten that he even existed. The one exception is a persistent caller on the telephone, someone who seems to know everything about Nealon’s life, his confusing bother with the law and, more importantly, what has happened to his family. All Nealon needs to do is talk with the stranger.

About the Author

Mike McCormack is an award-winning novelist and short story writer from Mayo. His previous work includes Getting it in the Head (1995), Crowe’s Requiem (1998), Notes from a Coma (2005), which was shortlisted for the Irish Book of the Year Award, and Forensic Songs (2012). In 1996 he was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and in 2007 he was awarded a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship. His latest novel, Solar Bones (Tramp Press, 2016), won the Goldsmiths Prize, the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Award for Best Novel and Best Book, and the Dublin International Literary Award (previously known as the IMPAC). He was nominated for a slew of other awards, including the Booker Prize. His new novel, This Plague of Souls, is forthcoming with Tramp Press. Mike McCormack lives in Galway with his family.

Book in March - How to Build a Boat By Elaine Feeney

With tender prose and vivid imagery, Feeney introduces us to 13-year-old Jamie O’Neill, whose two biggest ambitions are to build a Perpetual Motion Machine and to connect with his mum, Noelle, who died when he was born. In his mind these things are intimately linked. And at his new school, where all else is disorientating and overwhelming, he finds two people who might just be able to help him.

How to Build a Boat is the story of how one boy and his mission transforms the lives of his teachers, Tess and Tadhg, and brings together a community. Written with tenderness and verve, it's about love, family and connection, the power of imagination, and how our greatest adventures never happen alone.

About the Author

Elaine Feeney is a writer from the west of Ireland. Her 2020 debut novel, As You Were, was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Irish Novel of the Year Award, and won the Kate O'Brien Award, the McKitterick Prize, and the Dalkey Festival Emerging Writer Award. Feeney has published three collections of poetry including The Radio Was Gospel (2013) and Rise (2017), and her short story Sojourn was included in The Art of The Glimpse: 100 Irish Short Stories (2020), edited by Sinéad Gleeson. Feeney lectures at the National University of Ireland, Galway

Book in April - Kala by Colin Walsh

Kala is a coming-of-age story and a propulsive thriller set on the west coast of Ireland over two timelines. It’s the story of a group of friends who, reunited 20 years after the disappearance of their friend, are haunted by the mystery of what happened to her. Against the backdrop of a town suffocating on its own secrets, in a story that builds from a smoulder to a stunning climax, Kala brilliantly examines the sometimes brutal costs of belonging, as well as the battle in the human heart between vengeance and forgiveness, despair and redemption.

About the Author

This is Colin Walsh’s first novel in a successful career writing stories during which he won several awards including the RTÉ Francis MacManus Short Story Prize and the Hennessy Literary Award. In 2019 he was named Hennessy New Irish Writer of the Year and his writing has been published in the Stinging Fly, The Irish Times and broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 and BBC Radio 4. Colin is from Galway but now resides in Belgium.