Thursday 27 September 2018

Ageing Positively at Clare County Library

Age Action's Positive Ageing Week 2018, in association with Bank of Ireland, takes place from Monday 1st to Sunday 7th October 2018. The vision of Age Action is that Ireland becomes the best country in the world in which to grow older. Clare County Library is delighted to once again count itself among the many organisations that embrace Positive Ageing Week and will celebrate it with a variety of activities this year.

Throughout the week library branches around the county will have book displays featuring positive ageing related titles. Also to celebrate the week, Rose Molloy will give a free Mindfulness Decoupage workshop in Kilrush Library on Tuesday, 2nd October from 11am-1pm and in the De Valera Library, Ennis on Wednesday, 3rd October from 11am-1pm. (Free events but booking required)

For full details of all events check with your local branch or visit the Library Events section of the library website at www.clarelibrary.ie.

Details of national events are available at https://www.ageaction.ie/how-you-can-help/positive-ageing-week-2018-association-bank-ireland.

Remember too that library membership is free to everyone. So, during Positive Ageing Week, or at any time of the year, why not join your local branch? You’ll discover a whole world of books, CDs, DVDs, online resources such as e-books, e-audio books, e-magazines and more. You may even join one of our many clubs including book clubs, scrabble clubs, film clubs and crafts clubs. A whole new experience awaits you!

Wednesday 26 September 2018

Man Booker Shortlist 2018

The shortlist for the 2018 Man Booker prize has been announced. The books cover a wide range of subjects, from an 11 year-old slave escaping a Barbados sugar plantation, to a D-Day veteran living with post-traumatic stress disorder. Milkman by Belfast born author Anna Burns is set in an unnamed Belfast and features a young woman coming of age during the Troubles.

The shortlisted titles are
Milkman by Anna Burns
Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
Everything Under by Daisy Johnson
The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
The Overstory by Richard Powers
The Long Take by Robin Robertson

The chair of the judges said “From Ireland to California, in Barbados and the Arctic, they inhabit worlds that not everyone will have been to, but which we can all be enriched by getting to know. Each one explores the anatomy of pain — among the incarcerated and on a slave plantation, in a society fractured by sectarian violence, and even in the natural world. But there are also in each of them moments of hope. These books speak very much to our moment, but we believe that they will endure."

The Man Booker Prize is open to writers of any nationality writing in English and published in the UK and Ireland. The winner of the £50,000 prize will be announced on Tuesday 16th October. Donal Ryan’s From a Low and Quiet Sea and Sally Rooney’s Normal People, which had both been longlisted, did not make it through to the shortlist stage.