The Art of Reading Book Club with Colm Tóibín | Episode 22: 'The Amusements' by Aingela Flannery

The Arts Council Podcast

The November Art of Reading book club features Laureate for Irish Fiction Colm Tóibín in conversation with writer Aingeala Flannery about her book 'The Amusements'. “Aingeala Flannery’s first collection of linked stories is set in the seaside town of Tramore. ‘The people in this book are not real but the town of Tramore is,’ Flannery has written. ‘It took up residence in my imagination when I was a child and has refused to leave.’ RTE has written that ‘The Amusements’ ‘weaves a gorgeous, empathetic story of a teenager yearning for freedom.” — Colm Tóibín Aingeala Flannery’s first collection of linked stories is set in the seaside town of Tramore. ‘The people in this book are not real but the town of Tramore is,’ Flannery has written. ‘It took up residence in my imagination when I was a child and has refused to leave.’ RTE has written that ‘The Amusements’ ‘weaves a gorgeous, empathetic story of a teenager yearning for freedom. Aingeala Flannery was born in Waterford. She's an award-winning journalist, broadcaster and writer. Her short story Visiting Hours won the 2019 Harper’s Bazaar short story competition, and she has twice been a finalist in the RTÉ short story competition, first in 2018, and again in 2022 for her story Scrappage. Aingeala was awarded a Literature Bursary by the Arts Council of Ireland in 2020 and 2021. Her debut novel The Amusements was published by Penguin Sandycove in June 2022, and was shortlisted for The Irish Book Awards. Aingeala holds an MFA in Creative Writing from UCD. She lives in Dublin and is working on her second novel. Learn more about the Art of Reading Book Club and the Laureate for Irish Fiction programme: https://www.artscouncil.ie/Arts-in-Ireland/Literature/Laureate-for-Irish-Fiction/The-Art-of-Reading-Book-Club/