Today is St. Patrick’s Day and the perfect time to talk a wee bit about Irish authors. We know you know about the heavy hitters like James Joyce and Oscar Wilde, and you couldn’t miss the Irish-influence at this year’s Oscars: Emma Donoghue’s Room and Colm Toibin’s Brooklyn both inspired Best Picture nominees. But how about Kevin Barry? If this Irish lit phenom’s books aren’t yet topping your reading list, there’s little doubt they soon will be. Celebrated for their dazzling language and endless originality, his novels and story collections have already won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the Goldsmiths Prize, and the International Dublin Literary Award with author Irvine Welsh calling Barry’s debut The City of Bohane “the best novel to come out of Ireland since Ulysses.” So as you celebrate all things Irish today, don’t forget to check out a book by Kevin Barry. You can read more about them below, and don’t miss the great clip of Barry reading “Apparitions” – his witty tale about the ghosts of Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, and William Butler Yeats haunting the streets of modern Dublin. Enjoy!