In describing his idea for the Art of Reading Book Club series Colm Tóibín said:  “Our experience of reading became more intense and more essential during the lockdown. Although reading is mainly done in silence and when alone, it includes a sense of community, an idea of sharing. Readers want to talk about the books they like, to think about the internal workings of a novel or a story, and exchange ideas on books, all to enrich the experience of reading. Reading, as much as writing, is an art. It requires a creative response to the text. No books matters unless someone is reading it. The purpose of the Art of Reading Book Club is to deepen the idea of a community of readers and to recognize the vitality and excitement in the act of reading and thinking about books.”

Eimear McBride is the author of three novels: ‘Strange Hotel’, ‘The Lesser Bohemians’ and ‘A Girl is a Half-formed Thing’. She held the inaugural Creative Fellowship at the Beckett Research Centre, University of Reading which resulted in the performance work ‘Mouthpieces’ - later broadcast by RTE Radio. Her first full length non-fiction work ‘Something Out of Place: Women & Disgust’ was published in 2021, while her first foray into film writing and direction ‘A Very Short Film About Longing,’ produced by DMC and BBC Film, has recently been completed. She is the recipient of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, Goldsmiths Prize, James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, Desmond Eliot Prize and the Kerry Prize. She grew up in the west of Ireland and now lives in London.