Leonard and Hungry Paul is the story of two quiet friends trying to find their place in the world. It is about those uncelebrated people who have the ability to change the world, not by effort or force, but through their appreciation of all that is special and overlooked in life. Selection panel review And our publishing relationship continues with Rónán as we look forward to publishing his second novel Panenka in May and his third, Ghost Mountain, in 2024. Leonard and Hungry Paul, title characters in Rónán Hession’s debut novel, are like Forrest Gump, Johnsey Cunliffe from The Thing About December, Moss and Roy from The IT Crowd, and Richard Osman and Alexander Armstrong from the TV quiz show, Pointless. Lovable dorks, awkward antiheroes, oddballs who are comfortable in their own skin. These are not the pithy millennials of Sally Rooney’s world. Leonard and Hungry Paul don’t attend poetry readings or engage with internet culture. They don’t even read novels, preferring encyclopaedias and scientific journals. They like bird watching, discussing the bleaching of coral reefs and the discovery of dwarf planets, and playing board games.

Set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, a shattering novel about a young woman caught between allegiance to community and a dangerous passion. Photograph: peepo/Getty Images The protagonist blames a missed penalty for the decline of his whole town. Sally Diamond cannot understand why what she did was so strange. She was only doing what her father told her to do, to put him out with the rubbish when he died.Leonard and Hungry Paul are two friends in their thirties. Leonard lives alone these days, his mother having passed away recently. His work involves writing children's encyclopedias, which he enjoys, but doesn't seem to get a lot of credit for. Hungry Paul lives with his parents, who are retired, and occasionally fills in as a postman. Leonard visits his pal's house to play board games and the whole family often join in. Their discussion these days mostly revolves around the upcoming wedding of Grace, Hungry Paul's sister. But Leonard has other stuff on his mind too. For one thing, he has made the acquaintance of Shelley, a girl at work, and this has set all kinds of thoughts in motion. It might even prove a solution to his growing loneliness. And Hungry Paul has entered a competition to come up with a new sign-off phrase for the local Chamber of Commerce. These might seem like small events for most people, but for the two friends, they are significant, and this sets in motion a momentous few weeks in their otherwise quiet lives. I feel a little mean-spirited giving this book just 3 stars, as it does contain some funny lines, but for me Hession tries just a little too hard to please everyone, making it a little too much like a romcom script for my taste. On the positive side, it is hard not to sympathise with Hession for wanting to create a kinder, gentler world, and characters like his two leads are pretty rare in literature, if all too common in real life - many of the situations they face were very familiar. And the otherwise quiet and rather passive characters are given to lengthy philosophical exposition and didactic speeches, two of which in particular (Leonard to his putative new girlfriend, and Hungry Paul to his sister) do seem to rather stray into mansplaining.

Leonard and Hungry Paul, by Rónán Hession, is a novel of wry intelligence wrapped around the quiet rhythms of ordinary lives as they are being lived. The apparent simplicity of the narrative carries the reader through moments of insight as characters speak from their hearts on everyday dilemmas. The rarity of such truthfulness in conversation and the skill with which thoughts and feelings are conveyed make this a singular read. Hungry Paul lives with his retired parents (his father an economist – which leads to some on point observations about that profession and about The Economist magazine; his mother a teacher). His older sister Grace is away from home and shortly to be married. That marriage gives the book its other main narrative arc – Paul’s family consumed with the preparations for it, and Leonard accompanying him there as his “plus one” (so as to free up the limited spaces for 2 other guests).Furthermore, unlike most artists, Hession has never fantasised about leaving his day job, never sat “dreaming of an alternative existence”. He points to a rich legacy of civil servants who wrote, people like Egyptian Nobel prize winner Naguib Mahfouz and Flann O’Brien and Thomas Kinsella. “Civil servants are interested in things very close to what writers are interested in,” he says. “You’re interested in society, and fundamentally, the position of individuals in society… That ‘zoom in, zoom out’ type perspective of the civil servant feels very natural in novel writing. I’ve a very interesting job. I love it very much… You’re dealing with some of the marginalised people in society. It is quite grounding. But also, you’re in a position to do things about it. I believe in my country. I believe in Irish society. My interest in the civil service and my writing is to try and contribute to that... And I’m okay with writing books that fit into my life. I believe in integration of everything. I’m not really one for compartmentalising. I try to be the same in writing as I am in work as I am with my kids. I don’t feel I’m playing roles.” This is the story of a remarkable boy and his search for his mother, told with warmth, tenderness and flair The unspecified location reinforces the slight detach from reality. There is a rough sketch of an urban landscape, streets, shops, restaurants, mentions of McDonald’s and a Tesco but only blueprints, which alleviates the characters from any major specific socio-geographical struggles. Both men reside in their family homes not (like many of us) because of unprecedented rent prices, but because they are happy in these homes. The limited plot is mercifully free of coincidence or twists – if I had a criticism it would be that some scenes (an out-of-date chocolates incident and a IT-helpdesk colleague) seem to be lifted from a sit-com.

Der Buchhändler*innen-Liebling aus England und Irland konnte mich bereits ab der ersten Seite in den Bann ziehen. Was für ein wunderbares, bezauberndes und vor allem warmherziges Buch!

Panenka, his next book, has football in it. It’s a moving story about a retired footballer grappling with a sense of failure. What inspired it? “I remember reading Disgrace by JM Coetzee,” he says. “Disgrace is a really interesting topic and it didn’t really deal with it in a way that I was expecting… Also, I had read an interview with Daniel Timofte, the guy who lost a penalty against Ireland for Romania… He hadn’t got over it. And people hadn’t let him get over it. And though he was a very talented footballer it was still the thing he was known for. The main theme of that book is life’s unfixability. I think our mentality at times is trying to fix the things in our life to allow us to move on to try and say, well, how can you move on if they’re not fixable?” Unashamedly optimistic

The BBC Radio 2 Book Club announced on 24 January that its new home is on the Zoe Ball Breakfast Show. If I don't believe in events, I don't believe in the characters. If I don't believe in the characters, I don't care about the characters. If I don't care about the characters, I don't care about the book.Two thirty-something single men are friends. They each live at home, they play board games, take satisfaction in their work, like to read, and are, in general, nice. Can quiet, gentle people change the world? The first I feel compelled to deploy is 'feel-good fiction’ (or the term of the moment, 'up-lit'). Unlike other novels that fall into this category, the focus shifts away from individuals overcoming obstacles: damaged pasts, disfigurement or dementia. The heroes (another label, but one I feel is fully justified) are those who refuse to wear a mask, presenting themselves without airs and graces, exactly as they are. I'm disinclined to call them misfits or underdogs, because, despite being aware that they are most definitely not cool, both Leonard and Hungry Paul are perfectly happy in their own skins and don't feel the need to adapt to suit others. It’s funny in part, but not at the expense of these two unorthodox guys. We just smile at Leonard’s awkward overtures of friendship to a woman he meets at work and Paul’s incapacity to rise to the occasion of speaking in public.