Slimming for the Beach

It’s a great plea­sure to wel­come the arrival of the new online jour­nal, the Dublin Review of Books, oth­er­wise known as drb.
It’s a free quar­terly online journal

whose object is the pub­li­ca­tion of clear and insight­ful writ­ing based on recently pub­lished books. Arti­cles will nor­mally be review essays of between 3,000 and 7,000 words. In giv­ing writ­ers the space to develop and elab­o­rate a full argu­ment, the drb will move beyond the lim­i­ta­tions nor­mally faced by review­ers in news­pa­pers and mag­a­zines. We hope read­ers will find an inter­est­ing range of sub­jects treated in a way that is both knowl­edge­able and acces­si­ble. While the drb will be Irish in its core per­spec­tive, an inter­est in the lit­er­a­ture, his­tory and cul­ture of Europe and the wider world will also char­ac­terise its pages.

So as you can see, there’ll be no dis­missal of years of work in a para­graph wedged between the ads. If your book is going to be praised or damned it will be given a proper appraisal, which is what most writ­ers crave — apart from the dosh, that is.

The edi­tors are Mau­rice Earls of Books Upstairs and Enda O’Doherty. The offi­cial launch is in the Irish Writ­ers Cen­tre on 27th March, but the site is live as from today.

Don’t for­get to check out the archive, which has a review of one of my favourite books,
The Win­ner of Sor­row by Brian Lynch.

: : drb.ie — dublin review of books: :
Books Upstairs
Irish Writ­ers Cen­tre
Brian Lynch