Colum McCann says he was devastated that Ireland lost out to France in the World Cup but that winning the National Book Award "did make up in some way for the defeat.”

The National Book Award for fiction for 2009 has gone to Irish author Colm McCann who lives in New York for his book "Let the Great World Spin." The book is set in New York in 1974 when a French tightrope walker Philippe Petit walked between the two towers of the Twin Towers, creating a massive publicity stunt.

New York based Irish writer Colum McCann has been shortlisted for the prestigious US National Book Awards for his novel 'Let The Great World Spin.'

Tom Deignan reviews a selection of recently published books of Irish and Irish-American interest.

ON August 7, 1974 a man stepped out on a thin high wire tied between Manhattan’s famous Twin Towers. Phillipe Petit, a skinny French tightrope walker, cast a rope between the two buildings of the World Trade Center with a bow and arrow in the night, and his illegal, crazy but ultimately successful walk between the two iconic buildings would eventually come to be called the art crime of the century. For Dublin-born writer Colum McCann, 44, Petit’s daring 1974 tightrope walk was a jumping off point, irony intended, a way to talk about New York, the Twin Towers and the people of the city and what they mean to him, without instantly conjuring up images of sirens and dust and devastation.

  In an effort worthy of their mighty subject, the Irish Repertory Theatre in New York will stage a month-long festival of all 26 plays written by William Butler Yeats, the world’s most revered Irish poet. The Rep’s Yeats Project will begin previews on Wednesday, April

Patsy Fagan's "authentic" Irish pub has just opened in Lebanon. And by some estimates, around 50 countries have Irish pubs. But we shouldn't get too hung up on what's "truly" Irish.

Much of the attention surrounding Colum McCann's extraordinary new novel "Dancer" has focused on its exploration of famed dancer Rudolf Nureyev. But this book is also about the nature of celebrity, the Cold War, art, sex and AIDS. Somehow, McCann - a Dublin native and Pushcart, Rooney and Hennessy prize winner - manages to make this all as witty as it is powerful and profound.

OH, the weather outside might have been frightful but the sounds were so delightful inside Connolly's Klub 45 as Moya Brennan enraptured the crowd with a mixture of songs from Signature and An Irish Christmas, her last two CDs.

Times Square might have been only steps away, but Moya's peaceful vibe inside Klub 45 jettisoned the glitzy commerce into another galaxy.

Her recordings as a solo artist and with Clannad are known for the manufactured atmospherics created in the studio.

An Evening with Joe O'Connor

Irish novelists Joseph O'Connor and Colum McCann enthralled an audience at the New York Public Library on November 14.

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