A collection of stories written in duet.Eight highly original stories, each woven from the joint inspiration of two amazing writers.Sixteen celebrated authors respond, play, twist and develop their story in turn. Without the certainty of being in full control, Duets brings a new dimension to the drama of reading and writing.

From award-winning author Adrian Duncan comes his first collection of astonishing short stories. These modern stories have been written over the past decade, half having been previously published in The Moth, The Stinging Fly, Dublin Review and elsewhere, half completely new. Patterning and happenstance make up the rich quotidian lives of the characters portrayed in these strange, energetic tales. The loose figures of young artists, footballers and artisan engineers act out against diverse...

Michael, a retired bridge engineer, has lived away from Ireland for most of his life and now resides alone in Bilbao after the death of his girlfriend, Catherine. Each day he listens to two versions of the same piece of music before walking the same route to visit Richard Serra's enormous permanent installation, The Matter of Time, in the Guggenheim Museum. Over the course of an hour before he leaves his apartment, Michael reflects on past projects, the landscapes of his adolescence, and h...

'An utterly distinctive voice in contemporary Irish literature' Irish Times'One of our most original writers' Irish IndependentSummer, 1923. Six-year-old Catherine Carolan grows restless on her parents' farm. It's already clear that her intellect will soon outgrow the two-room schoolhouse across the fields. But in post-Civil War Ireland, an education is not an easy thing for a girl to access, and young Cath...

'An utterly distinctive voice in contemporary Irish literature' IRISH TIMES'One of our most original writers'IRISH INDEPENDENTSummer, 1923. Six-year-old Catherine Carolan grows restless on her parents' farm. It's already clear that her intellect will soon outgrow the two-room schoolhouse across the fields. But in post-Civil War Ireland, an education is not an easy thing for a girl to access, and young Cathe...

From award-winning author Adrian Duncan comes his first collection of astonishing short stories. These modern stories have been written over the past decade, half having been previously published in The Moth, The Stinging Fly, Dublin Review and elsewhere, half completely new. Patterning and happenstance make up the rich quotidian lives of the characters portrayed in these strange, energetic tales. The loose figures of young artists, footballers and artisan engineers act out against diverse...

Adrian Duncan's novel A Sabbatical in Leipzig was shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year 2021Michael, a retired engineer, has lived away from Ireland for most of his life and now resides alone in Bilbao after the death of his girlfriend, Catherine. Each day he listens to two versions of the same piece of music before walking the same route to visit Richard Serra's enormous permanent installation, The Matter of Time, in the Guggen...

Bungalow Bliss, first published in 1971, was a book of house designs that buyers could use to build a home for themselves affordably. It first appeared two years before Ireland was to join the EEC as a self-published catalogue by Jack Fitzsimons from his Kells Art Studios in County Meath. He and his wife designed and collated it and printed it locally.Fitzsimons sold these books out of his car to newsagents, petrol garages and bookshops.Over the course of thirty ye...

When I was sent by the Soviet state to London to further my studies in calculus, knowing I would never become a great mathematician, I strayed instead into the foothills of anthropology.It is 1950 and Nikolai Lobachevsky, a Glav Torf mathematician and great-grandson of his illustrious namesake, is aiding Bord na Móna by surveying a bog in the Irish Midlands. Far from home, he studies the locals and the land. One afternoon, soon after he arrives, he receives a telegram call...

AN IRISH TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025'An original voice' Colm Tóibín'Duncan brings a new way of seeing' Irish TimesOne winter, in a secluded Alpine city, Irish sculptor John Molloy meets Bernadette, an enigmatic Italian sociologist. As John falls in love, a distressing moment from his youth rises into view, the disastrous fallout of which has reverberated unchecked through his life.Years later, a let...

Paul, a young Irish engineer, follows his girlfriend to Berlin and begins work on the renovation of a commercial building in Alexanderplatz. Wrestling with a new language, on a site running behind schedule, and with a relationship in flux, he becomes increasingly untethered.Set against the structural evolution of a sprawling city, this meditation on language, memory and yearning is underpinned by the site's physical reality. As the narration explores the mind's fragile architecture...