Róisín Ingle

Welcome back to the Women's Podcast Book Club, live from Chapters Bookshop on a Parnell Street in Dublin, everyone.

I'm Roisin Ingle, and I hope you're all doing well.

If you want to get in touch with us, we're on social at IT Women's Podcast, or you can email us thewomenspodcast at irishtimes.com.

And there's a lovely Lewis going by.

We love these ambient sounds in Chapters Bookstore.

We're here with our book club members, Bernice Harrison, Anne Ingle, Niamh Towie, and our very, very special guest today is Clare Keegan.

Claire is a writer whose work has earned a devoted following in our book club and way beyond our book club, but definitely in our book club, for its elegance, precision and emotional depth.

Whether you've read Foster, Small Things Like These, or one of her acclaimed and compelling short stories, my personal favourite is Antarctica.

If you haven't read it, you need to read it.

It's stayed with me for so long after reading it.

And you know that Claire has just this beautifully crafted prose and

and an ability to say so much in these amazing, well, I would say perfect short books.

I remember when I was foolish enough to be on Twitter, Clare, many years ago, one of the tweets I put up, which I think was a good one, was just that after I'd read small things like these, I just put up a picture of it and I said, this is a perfect book.

And that was it.

And that's my opinion.

I'm sticking to it and I still feel the same way.

And so late in the day, it only takes, I think, something like an hour or so to read, but it feels so much bigger in emotional scale and depth.

And I know that her work has made a huge impact on all of us here on the stage.

So thank you very much for that.

In the past couple of years, Claire has been interviewed by Dua Lipa, the pop star.