Great Books

[ken foree]

Haven't read it but it's on the list, and the DF Wallace has been added now

good stuff, along those lines is 'the corrections' by jonathan franzen? he was the guy who told oprah to eff off when she included him on her book of the month club thing. and then recanted. very funny, a combo delillo/wallace for me (who both seem to suck the teat of pynchon). erm, yea

Definitely worth a look - good reading and the usual moral cruxes to carry. Strangely the main characters in this are NOT Catholics, though there are one or two towards the background

cool i'm in-between books right now so i think i'll go for it

heard a lot about Pynchon, not so big here as in the states, and personally as elusive as Salinger I believe. Is his other stuff worth rating?

defo a freak of nature, 4 books in forty years? only one photo exists of him and his whereabouts unknown so salinger-like in that respect to be sure. can't recommend anything other than 'lot 49' which is about 150 pages but seems like 700. his stuff only gets crazier from there, e.g. 'gravity's rainbow,' about (among 6,000 other plot lines) a guy who gets a stiffy every time a german v2 rocket approaches england, since he was bio-engineered in the same german lab as the missles. i guess you could use adjectives like 'farce' and 'post-??' to describe his stuff!

[ken foree]

Ennis is a great writer. Very funny, astute bloke. He was great when he was 18, doing Troubled Souls in the eighties with John Macrea, and he's got better since. Although I do struggle with blasphemy, I adored Preacher, nearly injuring myself with laughter several times. V was a cracking read too, but I find Moore's later stuff less rewarding. Didn't really dig The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

New series of Who starts sometime at Easter. More excited about it than I can say.

never read early ennis stuff but sounds good for an 18 yr. old! 'preacher' had a great balance to all its aspects and he really hit on it at the right time, especially for the u.s. reader. moore's 'league' was just okay, you're right. not a patch on his better stuff. art coulda been a lot better too. what about 'marvels' - always thought that was a terrific idea executed near perfectly.

only briefly seen the new doctor! looks better than the guy they had in that semi-recent one-off movie anyway. ian dowie to play davros surely, no makeup required

[davey]

Just finished "Oh play that thing", Roddy Doyles follow up to the greatest Irish novel ever, "A Star Called Henry". Enjoyable but nowhere near as good as the first in the trilogy.

Loved Tom Wolfes "Bonfire of the Vanities" too. Brilliant look at greed in NY in the 1980s.

[lopez]

My favourites:

Fiction Foreign - Undoubtedly Orwell's 'Animal Farm' and '1984'. Brilliant! Both were made into films although I found the movie of version of AF didn't have a lot in common with the book. Also anything by Martin Cruz Smith.

Fiction Irish - 'Divorcing Jack' by Colin Bateman.

Factual foreign - 'Dirty War: Clean Hands' by Paddy Woodworth. Like a thriller with how his former student flat-mate who wanted to kill a policeman with a heavy wheel out of a window becomes the Socialist governor of Vizcaya and ultimately jailed for his part in the state-sanctioned assasination of ETA members.

Factual Irish - 'John McQuaid: Ruler of Catholic Ireland' by John Cooney.

Sport foreign - 'Dark Trade: Lost in Boxing' by Donald McRae: A 1995 book on boxing. 'When Beckham Went To Spain' by Maradona's biographer Jimmy Burns. Thankfully not much on Beckham but lots on the footballing culture he's playing in. And 'The Selling of The Green: The financial Rise and Moral Decline of the Boston Celtics' by Harvey Araton and Filip Bondy: Controversial 1991 book on the basketball franchise.

Sport Irish - 'The Team that Jack Built' by Paul Rowan, 'The Sash He Never Wore' by Derek Dougan and 'The Fighting Irish' by Roger Anderson.

[Duncan Gardner]

Christmas reads for me (Don't get much chance to get into a good book until i get some free time):

Ryanair (Biog. of Michael O'Leary) - Siobhan Creaton

Creaton's book is quite sympathetic to O'Leary, recognising the huge influence he's had on cheap(er) travel.

On the other hand (as widely covered in the Dublin media) she shows that he can be an ill-mannered buffoon.

[1MickCollins]

Most contemporary fiction is such a waste of time - for wonderful prose try Cormac McCarthy's Child of God, Suttree and his masterpiece Blood Meridian. Forget his later trilogy which has won awards, it doesn't have the power of Blood Meridian.

Also anything by JM Coetzee.

[ken foree]

Most contemporary fiction is such a waste of time - for wonderful prose try Cormac McCarthy's Child of God, Suttree and his masterpiece Blood Meridian. Forget his later trilogy which has won awards, it doesn't have the power of Blood Meridian.

agree there, 'most' fiction seems pretty awful but then again it's impossible to read all of it so i shouldn't comment. maccarthy is heavy stuff alright, there's inscrutable words in there, and mad mad poetry, and he can be disturbing like few others. read 'outer dark' and 'blood meridian' though i find with him a little goes a long way! (similar to faulkner in that regard perhaps?) still great and destroys much else.

who's this coetzee then besides having another great name?

[blobbyblob]

Reading John Grishams The Last Juror at the mo. Gripping stuff.

Just finished Paranormal Ireland - Cant remember the author. Good read for the ghost hunters among you.

[lopez]

Last summer I went to Dublin. One of the things I wanted to do was a Joyce 'walk'. I therefore attempted to read Ulysses. What a load of cojones, although it had its moments. I almost gave up several times. It seems to me that - like stuff like baseball - the books, articles and 'culture' that surround this 'masterpiece' are more interesting than the item itself.

Is there anyone out there that has read this book? And anyone think that it's me that talking b*llocks?

[shedite]

Creaton's book is quite sympathetic to O'Leary, recognising the huge influence he's had on cheap(er) travel.

On the other hand (as widely covered in the Dublin media) she shows that he can be an ill-mannered buffoon.

I like that book. Shows how ruthless you have to be to succeed.

Book I'm reading is Bill Bryson, A Short History of Everything. Great Read. It's a funny look at the solar system in easy words.

[sylvo]

Reading at the moment ''John Devoy the greatest of the Fenians'', just after finishing ''Green and Red, the lives of Frank Ryan'' and just over Christmas I read ''Kerry's Fighting story 1913-1924''

[1MickCollins]

agree there, 'most' fiction seems pretty awful but then again it's impossible to read all of it so i shouldn't comment. maccarthy is heavy stuff alright, there's inscrutable words in there, and mad mad poetry, and he can be disturbing like few others. read 'outer dark' and 'blood meridian' though i find with him a little goes a long way! (similar to faulkner in that regard perhaps?) still great and destroys much else.

who's this coetzee then besides having another great name?

A South African writer who writes with spare and elegant prose. But the Nobel committee have probably put the kibosh on him by making him the literature laureate last year.

[1MickCollins]

Last summer I went to Dublin. One of the things I wanted to do was a Joyce 'walk'. I therefore attempted to read Ulysses. What a load of cojones, although it had its moments. I almost gave up several times. It seems to me that - like stuff like baseball - the books, articles and 'culture' that surround this 'masterpiece' are more interesting than the item itself.

Is there anyone out there that has read this book? And anyone think that it's me that talking b*llocks?

That book is without peer, the only time I wish I were a Dubliner is when I am reading Joyce! ( of course his father's side of the family came from Cork wouldn't yah know ). Forget the secondary material and hoopla generated mostly by American acedemics and just read ( try starting at chapter 4 ).

[piratemousey]

the rulers of the world by john piger. fascinating insite into the
politics of greed and murder.
anything by george orwell and Noam choamski

[fosterdollar]

It can't be as hard as 'Borstal Boy',which I read when I was 16-17;All written in dialect.........Immortal closing lines though,would bring a tear to any Irish person.......

On this note, try Irvine Welsh out for size. Trainspotting was a nightmare to get used to at the beginning. Ecstacy and Filth are reads you won't put down till the end though. Acid House short stories are hialrious.

[green goblin]

Last summer I went to Dublin. One of the things I wanted to do was a Joyce 'walk'. I therefore attempted to read Ulysses. What a load of cojones, although it had its moments. I almost gave up several times. It seems to me that - like stuff like baseball - the books, articles and 'culture' that surround this 'masterpiece' are more interesting than the item itself.

Is there anyone out there that has read this book? And anyone think that it's me that talking b*llocks?

I read it when I was 19. I thought it was fantastic, mind stretching... and a load of incomprehensible aul' bolleux, all at the same time. It's certainly more lucid that some of his other work. Finnegans Wake, for eg. What the frick is that one all about? Makes Ulysses read like a Haynes Manual by comparison. 20 years later I still can't work out whether it's genius or a double portion of sweetbreads.

I think you need to try and look at it given the times he lived in, not with our post modernist eyes. It's still never going to be an easy read, but as a great man once said, "You should try everything in life once, except incest and folk dancing".

Still, he could play guitar, and as such would play rythymn in my all time fantasy Irish supergroup. Haven't decided who else is is in it yet.

[lopez]

I read it when I was 19. I thought it was fantastic, mind stretching... and a load of incomprehensible aul' bolleux, all at the same time. It's certainly more lucid that some of his other work. Finnegans Wake, for eg. What the frick is that one all about? Makes Ulysses read like a Haynes Manual by comparison. 20 years later I still can't work out whether it's genius or a double portion of sweetbreads.

Good description of Ullyses. Read Dubliners prior to that and found it an easy enough read. Portrait I began after Joyce but found a more interesting book by page 2 although this is not to say I thought it was cr*p. Ullyses had its moments - Bloom's self fornication on the beach, getting the biscuit bin by the citizen - and that every chapter is written differently is a masterpiece. Heard once Finnegan's Wake was his revenge on English supplanting the Irish language.

[ken foree]

Heard once Finnegan's Wake was his revenge on English supplanting the Irish language.

hah! that would be the something.

joyce always considered himself a poet first, so his stories can be read for sound. didn't know he played guitar, the man obviously has a melodic ear! try reading some of ulysses out loud, just a paragraph or two. preferably alone so you don't have to feel like a pretentious ******

[ollie]

tony cascarino's book was very good and honest. the gafta awards is very funny.

[green goblin]

Good description of Ullyses. Read Dubliners prior to that and found it an easy enough read. Portrait I began after Joyce but found a more interesting book by page 2 although this is not to say I thought it was cr*p. Ullyses had its moments - Bloom's self fornication on the beach, getting the biscuit bin by the citizen - and that every chapter is written differently is a masterpiece. Heard once Finnegan's Wake was his revenge on English supplanting the Irish language.

The change of format/viewpoint for each chapter is great, actually. English people in general don't come over all that well. the soldiers' for eg, "Oh, oi do loikes a noice mince poi" still gets me smiling. It's also incredibly rude in places, which I'm sure didn't hurt it's reputation.

Veering off on a tangent, an early teenage fave of mine was Tom Barry's "Guerilla Days in Ireland". The 1970's version had a great cover, that made it look like Biggles, or something. Dead exciting. I still remember my poor (English as cucumber sandwiches, bless her!) Mother making me solemnly swear not to share my ethusiasm for it with my friends at school, who might not have been able to place it in the appropriate cultural context, shall we say.