You're about to listen to a BBC podcast, but this is about something else you might enjoy.

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Family ties are stretched to breaking point on Open Book this week,

as Column Tabine reveals the fraught paternal relationships experienced by three Irish literary greats.

Plus, in the first of a new series,

we uncover rich literary pickings from a given year, kicking off with greats. Plus, in the first of a new series, we uncover rich literary pickings

from a given year, kicking off with 1979. But we begin six years before that in the baking

hot New York summer of 1973, as two rookie cops form a brief partnership with lifelong consequences.

In Ask Again Yes, the third novel from Irish-American novelist Mary Beth Keen,

we follow the fortunes of their burgeoning families, the Gleason's and Stanhope's,

as they settle down in adjacent suburban homes.

It's there, as neighbours, that Kate Gleason and Peter Stanhope

become best friends almost from birth.

Kate was born into the swampy humidity of August.

Lena always said she couldn't nurse Kate because as soon as they were skin to skin,

they'd both get so sweaty she'd slip right off.

...