![Reading Ulysses Reading Ulysses](https://bookanista.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Ulysses_detail_feature.jpg)
Reading Ulysses
When I was 22, I spent the month of June travelling around the Balkans by myself. I was trying to heal a broken heart, having been unexpectedly dumped by a boyfriend. Night after night, I ate supper alone in a taverna with just my book for company. The book in question was not only one...
![Summer at Sheep's Head Summer at Sheep's Head](https://bookanista.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Sheeps_Head_feature-290x290.jpg)
Summer at Sheep’s Head
Nick Laird’s latest novel Modern Gods is a provocative tale of two Northern Irish sisters who trying to negotiate unexpected challenges of faith, family, guilt and repentance – both at home and in the depths of a Papua New Guinea rainforest. He answers our quickfire Q&A on a recent London visit. Where are you now?...
![Adventures in improvising Adventures in improvising](https://bookanista.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Taste_for_Chaos_feature-290x290.jpg)
Adventures in improvising
The single rule in contemporary comic improv sketches, is, Yes, and… If your partner starts a sketch saying, Hey, I just met a green-skinned alien!, you must build on that premise; for example play the skincare guru and ask, Dry, normal, or oily? To scoff and say You’re nuts! There’s no such thing! is to...
![Portals of discovery Portals of discovery](https://bookanista.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/From_Out_of_the_City_feature-290x290.jpg)
Portals of discovery
From Out of the City is set in Dublin, Ireland some years from now. The President of the United States is assassinated during a state dinner and while the official account takes hold, an octogenarian named Monk discovers a version of his own, one which involves some people very close to home. This is the...