BootsnAll Travel Community

Hello All!

I read "Round Ireland With a Fridge" by Tony Hawks. It was very funny and generally silly. About a guy who, on a bet, hitchhikes around the perimeter of Ireland with a mini fridge just to proove that the Irish really are that friendly.

Travelers Tales has a good anthology on Ireland and I recently picked up "McCarthy's Bar" by Pete McCarthy, though I haven't gotten a chance to read it yet.

Also read Roddy Doyl's "The Commitments" about an Irish soul band on the cusp of making it big. They made it into a movie, which happens to be my favorite movie of all time. I can quote the whole thing line for line.

What are your favorite books about Ireland?

Jet

Loved Nuala O'Faolain's "My Dream of You" (though it got a little long at the end). It's a mixture of 2 love stories. Kathleen, the 50-year-old narrator, is searching for love and identity in her return to her homeland Ireland. She is a writer who is researching the historical tale of an Englishwoman's adulterous affair with an Irish stablehand 150 years previously. It's excellent -- I know the description above sounds really mushy, but it's not. It's sharply observed & beautifully written.

And, oh yeah, it's got something to do with Ireland.

And I forgot -- the protagonist is a travel writer *extra points*.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry...=9781573229081&itm=1



"My Dream of You is a subtle, aching novel that explores Kathleen's longing for love, her inability to make long-term commitments, and the painful ambivalence of the exile at home. As in Are You Somebody?, O'Faolain manages to be lyrical without being melodramatic. Her gifts as a writer extend from her descriptions of the Irish seashore, where you can taste the salty air, to quirky descriptions of small-town Irish life, where the sad history of the Famine is just below the surface. Kathleen's desire to be loved is contrasted with her refusal to speak with self-pity. Indeed, despite her desire, Kathleen's refusal to open up may be the very thing that sabotages her own romantic possibilities. O'Faolain's great achievement in the novel is to have made Kathleen a flesh-and-blood woman with the churning of fate in her stomach and a palpable sensuality in her heart."

ps I hope the Ireland section goes back in Europe, please.

I second Christina's motion to put this forum back into 'Europe'. I have this feeling that many people who might be able to contribute just might not bother checking all the way over here....

Cheers
Kate

*steals the topic back*

Right now I'm reading How The Irish Saved Civilization. I'm finding it terribly boring. Half way through and unwilling to go on. And I thought the topic was interesting, coming from an anthropologists point of view.

A fiction series I enjoyed was the Sevenwaters Trilogy.

*quick off topic*

I like Ireland and London having thier own forum. They are popular. Not to mention that London is often visited, even if its just passing through the airport.

Damn it! I was going to reccommend the three you have in your original post Jet. McCarthy's Bar is one of my favourite books ever. Stop reading this forum and go and read it now!

If you like The Commitments you'll probably like other of Roddy Doyle's stuff. It's all good, but The Snapper and The Van deal with the same community as The Commitments. (It's a while since I read them, but I think they all have Jimmy as a central character).

Paddy Clark Ha, Ha, Ha was my first grown up book and I loved it. But The Woman Who Walked Into Doors remains my favourite. Can't remember the central character's name, but I was at a readig by Doyle at Edinbugh Book Fest and he said it was the character who haunted him the most. It shows.

(Great reading - the downside was I was too knackered to go onto Pete McCarthy's reading the same evening and then he went and died. Bugger).

KPG

p.s. oh yeah - he also wrote a book called A Star Called Henry. I don't remember much about it other than it was good.