Sean O'Brien

Like the creation myths they supersede, the revelations of science are seared into our collective imagination through storytelling. In this anthology, authors have worked together with scientists and historians to bring vividly to life the stories behind the 'eureka!' moments that changed the way we live, forever.

White House kids Clara and Marissa Suarez find themselves on the hunt for a stolen eagle sculpture and on the front lines of the labor movement in this noir-style mystery that takes them through the streets of Great Depression–era Washington, DC. Along with Roosevelt grandchildren Buzzie and Sistie, the chase takes Clara and Marissa from the factory floor to the skies with Amelia Earhart, through encounters with historical figures—and keeps readers guessing up to its dramatic end on a river cruise with Franklin and Eleanor. Funny, fast-paced, and filled with action, White House Mystery continues Sean O’Brien’s exciting middle grade series that “masterfully weaves together history, adventure, and purpose” (Ruby Shamir).

White House kids Clara and Marissa Suarez find themselves on the hunt for a stolen eagle sculpture and on the front lines of the labour movement in this noir-style mystery that takes them through the streets of Great Depression–era Washington, DC. Along with Roosevelt grandchildren Buzzie and Sistie, the chase takes Clara and Marissa from the factory floor to the skies with Amelia Earhart, through encounters with historical figures—and keeps readers guessing up to its dramatic end on a river cruise with Franklin and Eleanor. Funny, fast-paced and filled with action, White House Mystery continues Sean O’Brien’s exciting series that “masterfully weaves together history, adventure and purpose” (Ruby Shamir).

When the clubhouse fills with smoke, Marissa and Clara Suarez escape through one of its doors—and find themselves in James Madison’s presidency, with the White House and capital city set on fire by invading British troops! With an iconic portrait of George Washington in hand, they race through the countryside as the War of 1812 rages all around them. Over rough roads, on sailing ships and on the ramparts of Baltimore's Fort McHenry, Marissa and Clara help save a young nation (and play a part in writing “The Star-Spangled Banner”) while confronting the contradictions that challenge what it means to be free. Funny, fast-paced and filled with wholesome adventure, White House on Fire! continues Sean O’Brien’s exciting middle grade series that “masterfully weaves together history, adventure, and purpose” (Ruby Shamir).

When the clubhouse fills with smoke, Marissa and Clara Suarez escape through one of its doors—and find themselves in James Madison’s presidency, with the White House and capital city set on fire by invading British troops! With an iconic portrait of George Washington in hand, they race through the countryside as the War of 1812 rages all around them. Over rough roads, on sailing ships, and on the ramparts of Baltimore's Fort McHenry, Marissa and Clara help save a young nation (and play a part in writing “The Star-Spangled Banner”) while confronting the contradictions that challenge what it means to be free. Funny, fast-paced, and filled with wholesome adventure, White House on Fire! continues Sean O’Brien’s exciting middle grade series that “masterfully weaves together history, adventure, and purpose” (Ruby Shamir).

Marissa and Clara’s mom is the newly elected president of the United States, and they haven’t experienced much freedom lately. While exploring the White House they discover a hidden tunnel that leads to an underground clubhouse full of antique curiosities, doors heading in all directions—and a mysterious invitation to join the ranks of White House kids. So they sign the pledge. Suddenly, the lights go out, and Marissa and Clara find themselves at the White House in 1903. There they meet Quentin, Ethel, Archie, and Alice, the irrepressible children of President Theodore Roosevelt. To get back home, Marissa and Clara must team up with the Roosevelt kids “to help the president” and “to make a difference.” White House Clubhouse is a thrilling and hilarious adventure that takes readers on an action-packed, cross-country railroad trip, back to the dawn of the twentieth century and the larger-than-life president at the country’s helm.

These poems depict a restless world of journey and movement, of arrivals and departures, greetings and farewells. Soldiers come home from war, old friends reunite. The only stillness is death. The human past is etched into the natural landscape as the living watch and listen to the continuously changing moment they find themselves in, which in turn is pressed into history by the relentless insistence of time: ‘there was before, there will be after, no half-measures.’‘Sean O’Brien’s work combines an almost documentary realism with mythical patterning. The world capsizes from surface into depth, depth into surface, as if the present tense was a trap-door into a deeper, darker longue durée. His subject is the uneasy truce between past and present, and in Juniper he traces History to its vanishing-point in ordinary lives, in poems that are both richly imagined and true to their people, their times and places. His is a voice that reminds us what poetry can still be and do for a culture.’ Patrick McGuinness

In a universe where hope dims like a dying star, one man's loss becomes his ultimate quest for redemption.Asteroid belt miner Collier South has hit the nadir of existence. Once a beacon of idealism in the cold, unforgiving expanse of space, he's lost everything: the love of his life, an alien artifact that had promised great change, and his irreplaceable companion, Sancho, the sentient ship's computer. In the aftermath of tragedy, Collier finds himself at a crossroads-haunted by the specters of his past and the vast, uncharted territories of space that call to him once more.The discovery that nothing is ever truly lost reignites Collier's resolve. Armed with the recovered alien artifact, a beacon of untold power, he sets out to reclaim his ship, his friend, and his purpose. With the aid of unexpected allies and an unbreakable bond with Sancho, Collier embarks on a journey that will take him to the edges of known space and beyond.In a race against time and destiny, can Collier South mend the fabric of space itself, or will his final gambit unleash forces that could shatter the fragile peace of the cosmos?

In a universe where hope dims like a dying star, one man's loss becomes his ultimate quest for redemption.Asteroid belt miner Collier South has hit the nadir of existence. Once a beacon of idealism in the cold, unforgiving expanse of space, he's lost everything: the love of his life, an alien artifact that had promised great change, and his irreplaceable companion, Sancho, the sentient ship's computer. In the aftermath of tragedy, Collier finds himself at a crossroads-haunted by the specters of his past and the vast, uncharted territories of space that call to him once more.The discovery that nothing is ever truly lost reignites Collier's resolve. Armed with the recovered alien artifact, a beacon of untold power, he sets out to reclaim his ship, his friend, and his purpose. With the aid of unexpected allies and an unbreakable bond with Sancho, Collier embarks on a journey that will take him to the edges of known space and beyond.In a race against time and destiny, can Collier South mend the fabric of space itself, or will his final gambit unleash forces that could shatter the fragile peace of the cosmos?

The world is changing. How much will it change? Sydney wakes up in the world of the algorithm and is mysteriously ejected. He meets new friends who live beyond the algorithm, but who serve it nonetheless. Will he find a way to adapt? Will they accept him? Will he be able to help them as they are being drawn into an interplanetary scheme? Or will the algorithm win? A pleasant dystopian novel that you won't be able to put down

Marissa and Clara’s mom is the newly elected president of the United States and they haven’t experienced much freedom lately. While exploring the White House they discover a hidden tunnel that leads to an underground clubhouse full of antique curiosities, doors heading in all directions—and a mysterious invitation to join the ranks of White House kids. So they sign the pledge. Suddenly, the lights go out and Marissa and Clara find themselves at the White House in 1903. There they meet Quentin, Ethel, Archie and Alice, the irrepressible children of President Theodore Roosevelt. To get back home, Marissa and Clara must team up with the Roosevelt children “to help the president” and “to make a difference”. White House Clubhouse is a thrilling and hilarious adventure that takes readers on an action-packed, cross-country railroad trip, back to the dawn of the twentieth century and the larger-than-life president at the country’s helm.

A new collection by Sean O’Brien – ‘Auden’s true inheritor’, and one of our wisest poetic chronographers – is not just a literary event, but also, invariably, a reckoning of the times. Given the nature of our times, his voice is an essential one: there is no other poet currently writing with O’Brien’s intellectual authority, historical literacy and sheer command of the facts. Embark also registers our unique cultural climacteric, where the larger crises of the planet – the pandemic and the terrifying spectre of revanchist nationalism among them – impact all of us, and where the illusion of a church-and-state separation of the personal and political can no longer hold. As the poet turns seventy, he shows us how the inevitable absences that age brings are assuaged by how we furnish them; the result is not just a logic made from loss and pain, but a music, a metaphysic, and finally a redemptive art. Embark reminds us of the enduring consolations of love, of friendship, of the freedoms and possible futures still afforded by the imagination – and, through O’Brien’s own exemplary model, of poetry itself.

'He's one of the best players I've ever played with. As a forward, I'd say he's the best.' Johnny SextonSeán O'Brien does not come from a traditional rugby background. He grew up on a farm in Tullow, far from the rugby hotbeds of Limerick and Cork or the fee-paying schools of Dublin. But as he made his way up through the ranks, it soon became clear that he was a very special player and a very special personality. Now, Seán O'Brien tells the remarkable and unlikely story of his rise to the highest levels of world rugby, and of a decade of success with Leinster, Ireland and the British and Irish Lions.

It Says Here is Sean O’Brien’s follow-up to his celebrated collection Europa, and has a vision as rich and wide-ranging as its predecessor. Set against shorter, ruthlessly focused pieces – vicious and scabrous political sketches and satires charting the growth of extremism and the disintegration of democracy – are meditations on the imaginative life, dream and remembrance, time and recurrence. There are elegies for friends and fellow poets; paranoiac, brooding pastorals; other poems lay bare the maddening trials of a historically literate mind as it attempts to navigate a world gone post-content, post-intellectual, and at times post-memory. At the centre of the book is the long poem Hammersmith, a shadowy, cinematic dream-vision of England during and since the Second World War. Here, O’Brien charts a psychogeographic journey through the English countryside and the haunted precincts of London, mapping a labyrinth of love, madness and lost history. The result is a stirring, illuminating document of a time of immense societal flux and upheaval by one of our finest poets and most insightful cultural commentators.'In both technical mastery and his belief in the seriousness of the poetic art, O’Brien is WH Auden’s true inheritor.' Irish Times

The original Northern Powerhouse, Newcastle upon Tyne has witnessed countless transformations over the last century or so, from its industrial heyday, when Tyneside engineering and innovation led the world, through decades of post-industrial decline, and underinvestment, to its more recent reinvention as a cultural destination for the North. The ten short stories gathered here all feature characters in search of something, a new reality, a space, perhaps, in which to rediscover themselves: from the call-centre worker imagining herself far away from the claustrophobic realities of her day job, to the woman coming to terms with an ex-lover who’s moved on all too quickly, to the man trying to outrun his mother’s death on Town Moor. The Book of Newcastle brings together some of the city’s most renowned literary talents, along with exciting new voices, proving that while Newcastle continues to feel the effects of its lost industrial past, it is also a city striving for a future that brims with promise.