Open Book - Sinéad Gleeson

Books and Authors

BBC

Society & Culture, Books

4.2 • 824 Ratings

🗓️ 21 April 2024

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

Sinéad Gleeson is a writer, broadcaster and editor of three anthologies of Irish writing. Her collection of essays, Constellations: Reflections from Life won Non Fiction Book of the Year at the 2019 Irish Book Awards, and now publishes her debut novel, Hagstone.

Hagstone is set on a remote island of the coast of Ireland, it tells the story of Nell an artist whose work takes inspiration from the landscape and folklore. When she receives an invitation to create a piece of art from the Inions, a reclusive commune of women living sustainably on the island, things begin to unravel. Sinead discusses the precarity of living as an artist, the folklore which infuses Hagstone and dedicating the book to the late activist and artist Sinead O' Connor.

The Book Makers by Adam Smyth is a celebration of five hundred and fifty years of the printed book, told through the lives of eighteen extraordinary people. The printers and binders, publishers and artists, paper-makers and library founders - who took the book in radical new directions. We hear about the binder who created Shakespeare's First Folio, a 16th century Dutch printer who created bestsellers on Fleet Street and the Cut and Paste Bible sisters who made art from the gospels.

And Kick the Latch author Kathryn Scanlan discusses her love of Moyra Davey’s Long Life: Cool White, Photographs and Essays.

Book List – Sunday 21 March

Hagstone by Sinéad Gleeson The Long Gaze Back: An Anthology of Irish Women Writers by Sinéad Gleeson The Glass Shore edited by Sinéad Gleeson Constellations: Reflections from Life by Sinéad Gleeson Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan Long Life Cool White: Photographs by Moyra Davey The Book Makers by Adam Smyth

Transcript

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0:00.0	On a winter's night in 1974, a crime took place that would obsess the nation.
0:07.0	It was an extraordinary news story.
0:09.0	The story of an aristocrat, Lord Lucan, who's said to have killed the family Nanny,
0:14.0	mistaking her for his wife, then somehow just disappeared.
0:18.0	One of the great mysteries in English criminal history. We're still looking for
0:21.7	Luan. It's honestly one of the most powerful stories of my lifetime. I'm Alex Fontunzelman. This is
0:27.8	the Lucan Obsession. Listen on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello, today we'll be looking at the history of the printed book through the lives of those who've shaped it, and Kick the Latch author Catherine Scanlon considers the work of Polymath Moira Davy.
0:47.3	But first, Sheneid Gleason is a writer, broadcaster, an editor of three anthologies of Irish writing, including The Long
0:55.1	Gays Back and The Glass Shore. Her collection of essays, constellations, reflections from life,
1:01.4	won non-fiction Book of the Year at the 2019 Irish Book Awards, and now she's published her first
1:07.1	novel, Hagstone. Set on an unnamed island, it tells the story of Nell,
1:12.5	an artist whose work takes inspiration from the landscape and folklore of the place,
1:16.9	where she's built a life of contented solitude. All this gets disturbed when she receives an
1:22.4	invitation from the mysterious Indians, a reclusive commune of women who've sought refuge from the
1:27.3	outside world at
1:28.2	Rathglas, an old secluded house on the island's highest point. They want to commission
1:33.2	Nell to make a piece which celebrates their history, but as the project takes shape, the
1:37.8	structure of their community begins to unravel. I'm delighted to say that Sheneid Gleason joins
1:42.9	me now in the studio. Hello, Shanaid. Hi, Octavia. I'd love you to see you.
1:46.5	So this novel is full of Irish folklore from the haggstone of the title to the folk tales of the Banshee,
1:52.8	figures like the herbalist Biddy Early or the goddess Danu. Is that where you're thinking for this book really started?
1:59.9	In many ways, yes, because, you know, you grow up in Ireland and you hear these tales from a very
	...

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