Books for Breakfast
A podcast focussing on fiction and poetry hosted by poets and writers Peter Sirr and Enda Wyley. Also features the Toaster Challenge where guest writers are given the time it takes to make toast to talk about a book that has resonated with them.
- Update frequency
- every 14 days
- Average duration
- 43 minutes
- Episodes
- 83
- Years Active
- 2020 - 2025
43: Gabriel Byne: on Walking with Ghosts
This morning actor and writer Gabriel Byrne talks to Books for Breakfast about his newly published memoir Walking with Ghosts. In a lively and wide ranging conversation with hosts Enda …
42 : Poetry, Memory and the Party: Thomas McCarthy Tells All
Today's show is devoted to an in-depth interview with poet Thomas McCarthy, whose Poetry, Memory and the Party: Journals 1974-2014 has recently been published by Gallery Press. The jour…
41: Thomas Kinsella 1928-2021; breakfast highlights of 2021
A special Christmas Eve edition of Books for Breakfast. In the last episode of the year we pay tribute to the work of Thomas Kinsella 1928-2021. We also feature some highlights from th…
40: Claire Keegan on Small Things Like These
'A single one of Keegan's grounded, powerful sentences can contain volumes of social history. Every word is the right word in the right place, and the effect is resonant and deeply movi…
39: New poetry from Eleanor Hooker, Amanda Bell
On today's show we talk to two poets who have published new collections: Eleanor Hooker, whose Of Ochre and Ash is published by Dedalus Press, and Amanda Bell whose Riptide is available…
38: Imram 2021; Alannah Hopkin on A Very Strange Man: A Memoir of Aidan Higgins
On today's show we talk to Liam Carson, director of the Irish language literary festival IMRAM about this year's wide-ranging and adventurous hybrid programme, which starts today. And w…
37: Short story special with John MacKenna and Madeleine D'Arcy
Today's show is a short story special and double Toaster Challenge edition. We begin with John MacKenna whose We Seldom Talk About the Past, the first selection of short stories from on…
36: Look! It’s a Woman Writer! Éilis Ní Dhuibhne and Catherine Dunne
Why have women been treated differently, and discriminated against, in the literary world? Why has gender been a ‘problem’ in the writing, publishing, funding and reviewing scene? And w…
35: 30 Years of the Irish Writers Centre; Kent Haruf
To celebrate thirty years of the Irish Writers Centre, Enda talks to co-host Peter, who was the first director of the Centre, about the early years, and Peter talks to current director…
34: New books; Lucia Berlin; Iain Crichton Smith
We ease our way back into breakfast book chat after our summer intermission with an episode on what we read ourselves during the summer. Enda chooses Lucia Berlin's A Manual for Cleanin…
33: Intimate City: Dublin essays, Aoife Lyall on Mother Nature; A Line Made by Walking
Today, in the last podcast in the current season, Enda Wyley talks to Aoife Lyall about her debut collection Mother Nature, published by Bloodaxe Books. Aoife's Toaster Challenge Choice…
32: Sinéad O'Connor's Rememberings, Victoria Kennefick, Sharon Olds
Today former RTE producer and writer Julian Vignoles, know for his biographies of Rory Gallagher and David Thomson of Woodbrook fame, reviews Sinéad O'Connor's memoir Rememberings, desc…
31: Louise Kennedy, Penelope Shuttle, Denise Levertov
This morning's show features interviews with two outstanding writers. First up is Louise Kennedy whose collection of stories The End of the World is a Cul de Sac has been widely praise…
30: Evelyn Conlon, The Examined Life, Grace Paley
Today we talk to Evelyn Conlon whose new collection of stories, Moving About the Place, has recently been published by Blackstaff Press. Brilliantly written, witty, and full of the shar…
29: Moya Cannon's Collected, The Best Address in Town, Nan Shepherd
Where did Dublin's uber-toffs live in the eighteenth century? Melanie Hayes drops in to talk about The Best Address in Town, Henrietta Street, Dublin and Its First Residents, 1720-1780,…
28: Philip Ó Ceallaigh's Trouble; in Prague with Justin Quinn; Edith Templeton
We're looking eastward toward today, with Toaster Challenge guest poet Justin Quinn who joins us from Prague, and we review the latest collection of stories from Bucharest based Philip …
27: A Gap in the Clouds: James Hadley and Nell Regan; haiku and senryu from Grant Caldwell; Hamsun's Hunger
This waning moon
is pitiless, as dawn
swiftly follows and we
must separate –
such heartbreak!
–Mibu No Tadamine
Today's show features James Hadley and Nell Regan talking abou…
26: Mountains to Sea podcast audio edition with Laura McKenna and Conor O'Callaghan
Welcome to the audio edition of the special Books for Breakfast video podcast for Mountains to Sea dlr Books Festival. We were delighted to be the opening event for the festival, with…
25: Apocalypse now; Una Mannion on A Crooked Tree; stories from the end of the world
Welcome to the 25th episode of Books for Breakfast! On today’s show we review Apocalypse: An Anthology, edited by James Keery, the first anthology of Apocalyptic or neoromantic poetry s…
24: Shirley Hazzard; Poetry and Money; Leeanne Quinn; the last of the Soviets
Today we look at Shirley Hazzard's The Transit of Venus, often considered her most brilliant novel, and poet Peter Robinson's investigation of the relationships between poets, poetry a…