Murrin, Alan "The Coast Road"

Murrin, Alan "The Coast Road" - 2024

A friend had read this book and lent it to me. It sounded quite interesting, stories about Ireland often are. But, this story really could have taken place almost everywhere. There are people like that in every village. I grew up in a Catholic village in the sixties and seventies, and life there was almost like that. Actually, there are still people around who act similar. However, these characters didn't come across very likely and likeable.

So, an easy read for anyone who is looking for that. Since I usually don't, I didn't enjoy this book that much. Not my thing.

From the back cover:

"It's 1994 in County Donegal, Ireland, and everyone is talking about Colette Crowley - the writer, the bohemian, the woman who left her husband and sons to pursue a relationship with a married man in Dublin. But now Colette is back, and nobody knows why.

Returning to the community to try and reclaim her old life, Colette quickly learns that they are unwilling to give it back to her. The man to whom she is still married is denying her access to her children, and while the legalisation of divorce might be just around the corner, Colette finds herself caught between her old life and the freedom for which she risked everything. Desperate to see her children, she enlists the help of Izzy, a housewife and mother of two, and the women forge a friendship that will send them on a spiralling journey - one toward a path of self-discovery, and the other toward tragedy."

McCourt, Malachy "A Monk Swimming"

McCourt, Malachy "A Monk Swimming" - 1998

The name McCourt is well known in reading circles, almost everyone knows Frank McCourt and his stories about his family. And he has mentioned his siblings. Well, Malachy is one of them. 

Same as his brother, this family member talks about his family. It is interesting to compare the experiences both brothers had with an alcoholic father in a dead-poor family. And how they both turned out in later life.

This story is a lot more negative than the "Angela's Ashes"-series. But also much funnier. The author comes across as the stereptypical Irish guy who likes drinking, singing etc. But he also shows that he has a heart. And after everything he went through as a child, we know he could have been a lot different.

One funny thing I have to tell. The weird title comes from his misunderstanding of a line in the Hail Mary when he was a child: "Blessed Art Though Among Women." He thought it meant "A Monk Swimming".

From the back cover:

"Slapped with a libel suit after an appearance on a talk show, Malachy McCourt crows, 'If they could only see me now in the slums of Limerick, a big shot, sued for a million. Bejesus, isn't America a great and wonderful country?' His older brother Frank's Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, Angela's Ashes, took its somber tone from the bleak atmosphere of those slums, while Malachy's boisterous recollections are fueled by his zestful appreciation for the opportunities and oddities of his native land.

He and Frank were born in Brooklyn, moved with their parents to Ireland as children, then returned to the States as adults. This book covers the decade 1952-63, when Malachy roistered across the U.S., Europe, and Asia, but spent most of his time in New York City. There his ready wit and quick tongue won him an acting job with the Irish Players, a semiregular stint on The Tonight Show hosted by Jack Paar, and friendships with some well-heeled, well-born types who shared his fondness for saloon life and bankrolled him in an East Side saloon that may have been the first singles bar. He chronicles those events--and many others--with back-slapping bonhomie.

Although McCourt acknowledges the personal demons that pursued him from his poverty-stricken childhood and destroyed his first marriage, this is on the whole an exuberant autobiography that pays tribute to the joys of a freewheeling life."

Osman, Richard "We Solve Murders"

Osman, Richard "We Solve Murders" - 2024

I absolutely loved Richard Osman's first books because I do love him as a person and also got to love him as an author, So, I was quite happy, when my son gave me this for Christmas.

If this was a movie, this would be an action thriller rather than a murder mystery. I love watching murder mysteries (though I don't read them much) but I really don't like action movies. Far too loud for me.

I must say, this was almost the same with this book. I heard people complain about his first books that there were too many characters and that you did confused. Well, if you got confused with the first lot, this one will certainly not do for you. It took me quite a while to even understand who was who and what they were up to. My book has 464 pages and I think I got into the story at around page 200. Far too late and I would have given up if it weren't for the author.

There is some humour in this book but not the humour I am used to from Richard Osman. Such a pity.

From the back cover:

"Steve Wheeler is enjoying retired life. He does the odd bit of investigation work, but he prefers his familiar habits and routines: the pub quiz, his favorite bench, his cat waiting for him when he comes home. His days of adventure are over: adrenaline is daughter-in-law Amy’s business now.

Amy Wheeler thinks adrenaline is good for the soul. As a private security officer, she doesn’t stay still long enough for habits or routines. She’s currently on a remote island keeping world-famous author Rosie D’Antonio alive. Which was meant to be an easy job...

Then a dead body, a bag of money, and a killer with their sights on Amy have her sending an SOS to the only person she trusts. A breakneck race around the world begins, but can Amy and Steve stay one step ahead of a lethal enemy?"

Keefe, Patrick Radden "Say Nothing"

Keefe, Patrick Radden "Say Nothing. A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland" - 2018

My son, who did an exchange semester in Belfast, recommended this book to me. We have come to love Ireland very much, both the North and the South. It is a troubled country but the people are ever so nice.

This was a tough read. Not because of the writing, the writing was perfect. The research seems to be impeccable, the understanding for everyone involved very empathic.

It was both tough as well as brilliant. The author managed to show all the terror of "The Troubles" (with a capital T) from all sides. I always had a problem with the description of this civil war as mere troubles. No, it was a real war that has never really led to a good peace agreement.

Patrick Radden Keefe starts with the description of the abduction and subsequent disappearance of a widowed mother of ten children. Then he introduces two sisters and their joining of the IRA with all its implications.

Seamus Heaney, Nobel Prize Winner of Literature in 1995 wrote a Poem about the Troubles: "Whatever You Say, Say Nothing." This is what the IRA members told each other in case they were caught.

One can think about the IRA whatever one wants but, as in most cases, they were not the cause of the conflict. The author highlights this wonderfully in his book. It is not good what they did but neither is the cause of the conflict. And, it is often regarded as a religious conflict because it was Protestants against Catholics. But if you really look at it, it was the Irish against their occupants. As so often, religion is just a protective shield to hide the real causes.

If you want to know more about this, I highly recommend reading the book.

I doubt this country will ever be at peace as long as part of it is occupied by others.

Book Description:

"Patrick Radden Keefe writes an intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions.

In December 1972, Jean McConville, a thirty-eight-year-old mother of ten, was dragged from her Belfast home by masked intruders, her children clinging to her legs. They never saw her again. Her abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress - with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes.

Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders."

Binchy, Maeve "The Maeve Binchy Writers' Club"

Binchy, Maeve "The Maeve Binchy Writers' Club" - 2010

The topic for this month's Xanadu read is: All Things Irish. I chose a book by an Irish author that had been on my TBR pile for a while. I picked it up on one of those book swap shelves where I left a lot of my books that I sorted out before our move. I thought this might be another book club type book but it was worth checking out.

Well, it was what it says, a book about a writers' club. With many hints for the budding author. And a short story at the end about a writers' class.

One thing I found quite interesting since I don't come across it very often, in week 11, The Writer as a Journalist, Maeve Binchy mentions Esperanto. Always worth a mention, I think.

I guess if you really want to write a book, there is quite some advice this one how to start and how to carry on. I had expected more a book about the club itself, something like a novel. However, it was an interesting read.

From the back cover:

"'The Maeve Binchy Writers' Club' gives an unique insight into how a No.1 bestselling author writes. Inspired by a course run by the National College of Ireland, it comprises 20 letters from Maeve, offering advice, tips and her own wonderfully witty take on the life of a writer, in addition to contributions from top writers, publishers and editors.

Whether you want to write a saga or a thriller, comedy or journalism, or write for the radio or stage, this also gives advice on the best way to get started, and what editors, publishers and agents are looking for.

'The Maeve Binchy Writers' Club' is a fascinating and informative guide to inspire all budding writers as well as entertaining Maeve Binchy fans the world over.

Includes expert advice from Marian Keyes, Alison Walsh, Norah Casey, Paula Campbell, Ivy Bannister, Seamus Hosey, Gerald Dave, Jim Culleton, Ferdia McAnna and Julie Parsons.

Includes a specially written brand new story by Maeve Binchy:
'The Writing Class'"

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft "Frankenstein"

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft "Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus" - 1818

I always wanted to read this book, it's one of the classics that doesn't really fit into my usual genre but it is definitely a classic. Apparently, one of the very first science fiction novels. Mary Wollstonecraft spent some time in Switzerland with her later husband Percy B. Shelley and Lord Byron when they decided to have a competition. Who would write the best horror story? I haven't read any of the two other authors but I'm sure Mary won this one.

Like I said, not my usual genre but our book club chose it as a solution to the lockdown procedures which prevented many of us to use our usual library and therefore, we needed something we could find online. Luckily, my son still has part of his books in our house so that I even had the book.

Frankenstein is not the monster, as people often believe. He's the creator. Although, maybe he has the touch of a monster in himself as he doesn't really care what will become of his creation. He is so ugly that he can't socialize and therefore becomes a monster.

This book is not just a horror story, there's a lot of psychology behind the scenes. We can look inside human beings, their dreams and their ambitions.

What I liked about the science fiction part, there are no strange explanations about how the being is created. You see this so often in films that they make something that is absolutely impossible in a way that you know wouldn't work. This way, there is nothing we can say was done incorrectly. We just have to imagine that it happened.

And before I forget, this is great writing. Not just the plot, also the style and technique are wonderful. Beautiful classic.

This was our international online book club novel in June 2020.

From the back cover:

"Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein when she was only eighteen. At once a Gothic thriller, a passionate romance, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of science, Frankenstein tells the story of committed science student Victor Frankenstein. Obsessed with discovering the cause of generation and life and bestowing animation upon lifeless matter, Frankenstein assembles a human being from stolen body parts but; upon bringing it to life, he recoils in horror at the creature's hideousness. Tormented by isolation and loneliness, the once-innocent creature turns to evil and unleashes a campaign of murderous revenge against his creator, Frankenstein.

Frankenstein, an instant bestseller and an important ancestor of both the horror and science fiction genres, not only tells a terrifying story, but also raises profound, disturbing questions about the very nature of life and the place of humankind within the cosmos: What does it mean to be human? What responsibilities do we have to each other? How far can we go in tampering with Nature? In our age, filled with news of organ donation genetic engineering, and bio-terrorism, these questions are more relevant than ever."

Doyle, Roddy "Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha"

Doyle, Roddy "Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha" - 1993

This book was highly praised and it sounded interesting and all, so when a friend left and gave it to me, I thought, great, I'll read it.

It still took me a couple of years until I finally started it. And now I know why. It just wasn't my story. To me, it wasn't really a big story. A man remembers what he experienced as a little boy. Nothing spectacular, just what little boys are up to. I don't mind that kind of reminiscences but they were neither funny nor in any way interesting.

Funnily enough, someone compared this to "The Catcher in the Rye" and "On the Road", and not in a positive way. I couldn't agree more.

Roddy Doyle won the Booker Prize for "Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha" in 1993.

From the back cover:

"It is 1968. Patrick Clarke is ten. He loves George Best, Geronimo and the smell of his hot water bottle. He hates zoos, kissing and the boys from the Corporation houses. He can't stand his little brother. He wants to be a missionary like Father Damien. He coerces the McCarthy twins and Willy Hancock into playing lepers. He never picks the scabs off his knees before they're ready. 

Kevin is his best friend. Their names are all over Barrytown, written with sticks in wet cement. They play football, knick-knack, jumping to the bottom of the sea. Shoplifting. Robbing Football Monthly means four million years in purgatory. But a good confession before you died and you'd go straight to heaven. 

He wants to know why no one jumped in for him when Charles Leavy had been going to kill him. He wants to stop his da arguing with his ma. He's confused: he sees everything but he understands less and less. 

'Witty and poignant, earthy and exuberant, Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha charts the triumphs, indignities and bewilderment of Patrick Clarke and his world, a place full of warmth, cruelty, love and slaps across the face."

Lopez-Schroder, Maite "Romping through Ulysses"

Lopez-Schroder, Maite "Romping through Ulysses" - 2013

While we visited Dublin recently (as described in this blogpost), we stayed in this wonderful guest house that was just like our own home. It was filled with books. What a treasure!

There was one that I really had to read as it gave me the opportunity to look at our host city through the eyes of James Joyce, Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus or, easy, Ulysses.

A lovely little book that tells us how the two protagonists made their way through the city on 16 June 1904, better known as Bloomsday.

And the best part of it, there are more "Romping through …" books. You can romp through Dublin or any other Irish books as well as through other literature or even mathematics. What a cute idea for a booklet.

From the back cover:

"Read all about the strange affair of the garter and the bowler hat. This is a 64-page illustrated improper guide to James Joyce’s Ulysses. It's pocket-size with a retro vibe. There are maps to help you create your own romp through Dublin.

Dip into it as an introduction to Joyce's big book. You will find out what's happening in the story, get ideas of what to do and places to visit. Arm yourself with a quote or two and pick up some insider titbits."

Dublin

Dia dhuit

("Hello" in Gaelic)

Last month, our family took a trip to Ireland. We visited Belfast where my son did an exchange semester but mainly, we spent our time in Dublin (or Baile Átha Cliath, as it is called in the native Gaelic), capital of the Republic, largest city of the Emerald Isle. Its original name means Blackpool in English. With a little over 1 million inhabitants (1,173,000 to be a little more precise), Dublin is a lovely city with lots of cultural and touristy sites but not too large to get lost in it.

My husband and my sons loved the opportunity to try all sorts of different Irish beers, visit the Guinness brewery and the Jameson distillery, but for me the most important part was its approach to literature.  Slàinte! ("Cheers" in Gaelic)

First, there is the old library in Trinity College which dates back to the times of Queen Elizabeth, the first, not the current one. It was really full, so you couldn't take any nice pictures like the ones you always see online (after all the tourists are out, I suspect) but I still managed to capture a few.
Then there were all the locations I remember from "Ulysses", "Dubliners" or other Irish novels like the ones by Edward Rutherfurd, "Dublin. Foundation" and "Awakening".

But one of the best parts here was seeing the Statue of James Joyce. I know he is not the easiest writer and maybe not the best liked one, but I love his books and was happy standing face to face with him. He lived from 1882 to 1941 and even though he spent quite a large part of his later life on the continent in Trieste, Paris and then Zurich, Dublin plays a major role in all of his novels. I can imagine how you can never forget this city, especially if you've grown up here.

My only regret was that I wasn't well enough to join the Literary Pub Crawl because I wasn't well enough to walk a lot. Maybe next time.

So, I hope you enjoy these pictures at least a little.

Slán! (which simply means "safe" in Irish but also "Good-bye")

Joyce, James "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man"

Joyce, James "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" - 1916

The story of a young man trying to find himself, a story about James Joyce himself, his character Stephen Dedalus is partly autobiographical. Stephen comes from a poor Irish family who goes to a religious boarding school which he has to leave for financial reasons. He then enters another religious school where they try to convince him to become a priest. This question is very important to the author and he tries to imagine himself as a priest. But he decides that life as it is is far more interesting for him and that he wants to live it in freedom. Between all this, he goes from all sorts of religious and social questions to the meaning of life and his first attempts of becoming a writer.

The book itself is highly philosophical and one could write a whole new book about Stephen Dedalus ... well, James Joyce did. "Ulysses" was first intended to be just a short story for the collection "Dubliners" but then was written as a sequel to "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man".

From the back cover:

"Published in 1916, James Joyce's semiautobiographical tale of his alter ego, Stephen Dedalus, is a coming-of-age story like no other. A bold, innovative experiment with both language and structure, the work has exerted a lasting influence on the contemporary novel.

'Joyce dissolved mechanism in literature as effectively as Einstein destroyed it in physics,' wrote Alfred Kazin. 'He showed that the material of fiction could rest upon as tense a distribution and as delicate a balance of its parts as any poem. Joyce's passion for form, in fact, is the secret of his progress as a novelist. He sought to bring the largest possible quantity of human life under the discipline of the observing mind, and the mark of his success is that he gave an epic form to what remains invisible to most novelists.... Joyce means many things to different people; for me his importance has always been primarily a moral one. He was, perhaps, the last man in Europe who wrote as if art were worth a human life.... By living for his art he may yet have given others a belief in art worth living for."

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2026.

O'Faolain, Nuala "Almost There"

O'Faolain, Nuala "Almost There: The Onward Journey of a Dublin Woman" - 2003

I love reading biographies, especially about interesting women, even if I don't really know them. So, I thought this might be an interesting read, the biography of an Irish woman writer.

However, I was disappointed. The writing wasn't all that great, the life not all that interesting, or at least she didn't succeed in persuading me that she had an interesting life or something worth mentioning. She's dragging on and on, retelling some stories from her life that, written like this, might be interesting to her family or people who know her closely but didn't really captivate me, my interest was not awakened. Neither in this book nor in the author. The ramblings of an unhappy woman.

All in all, I found the book pretty boring. I have another book of her on my TBR pile (My Dream of You), something a friend recommended. But I think it will take me quite a while until I tackle that.

From the back cover: "In 1996, a small Irish press approached Nuala O'Faolain, then a writer for the Irish Times newspaper, to publish a collection of her opinion columns. She offered to write an introduction to give the opinions a context - to explain the life experience that had shaped this Irish woman's views - and, convinced that none but a few diehard fans of the columns would ever see the book, she took the opportunity to interrogate herself, as fully and candidly as she could, as to what she had made of her life. But the introduction, the 'accidental memoir of a Dublin woman', was discovered, and 'Are You Somebody?' became an international bestseller. It launched a new life for its author at a time when she had long let go of expectations that anything could dislodge patterns of regret and solitude well fixed and too familiar.
Suddenly in mid-life there was the possibility of radical change. Whereas the memoir ended with its author reconciled to a peaceful if lonely future, now opportunities opened up, and there were thrilling choices to make - choices that forced her to address the question of how to live a better life herself and, therefore, of what makes any life better.
'Almost There' begins at the moment when O'Faolain's life began to change, and its both tells the story of life in the subtle, radical, and, above all, unforeseen renewal, and meditates on that story. It is on one level a tale of good fortune chasing out bad - of an accidental harvest of happiness. But it is also a provocative examination of one woman's experience of 'the crucible of middle age' - a time of life that faces in two directions, forging the shape of the years to come, and clarifying and solidifying one's relationships to friends and lovers (past and present), family and self.
Fiercely intelligent, hilarious, moving, generous, and full of surprises, this book is a crystalline reflections of a singular character, utterly engaged in life!"

McCarthy, Pete "The Road to McCarthy"

McCarthy, Pete "The Road to McCarthy: Around the World in Search of Ireland" - 2002

After reading "McCarthy's Bar" a couple of years ago, I was extremely sad to learn that the author had passed away in 2004. I read that that was his only book he had every written. Imagine my surprise and delight when I found this book in a second hand bookshop because it gave me another tale of Pete McCarthy's travels.

This time, he travels from Ireland to Morocco, New York, the Caribbeans, Tasmania, all sorts of destinations that somehow have to do with the name McCarthy, places you wouldn't even imagine having a link to Ireland at all. But Pete McCarthy found it.

Another hilarious book by a funny writer who left us all too early.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"From the bestselling author of McCarthy's Bar, this is a hilarious and thought-provoking journey into his Irish heritage around the world. As a veteran traveller, Pete McCarthy has long been intrigued that the emigrant Irish can be found in all corners of the globe. Determined to pin down mythical tales of his own clan history, Pete is thrust into a world-wide adventure that reveals an unsettled and poignant history, while unearthing a good pint in the most unexpected locations. From the Holy Ground of Cork harbour he travels to Gibraltar and Morocco, then onwards to New York, Tasmania, Montana, and the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat before finally reaching the remote Alaskan township of McCarthy and its population of just 14 people, but a lot more bears."

Joyce, James "Ulysses"

Joyce, James "Ulysses" - 1922 

I loved the writing but the story was quite overwhelming despite reading "The Odyssey" first which everyone recommends and I would, too. Having a lot of explanations helped but if you generally don't like classics very much, I wouldn't start with this one.

Still, this is the most difficult book I have ever read. It is hard to follow the stream of consciousness, actually it is hard to follow the stream at all. A lot of books are easier once you get into them, not this one. I had the feeling with every chapter it got more confusing.

As in "Odyssey" we have three parts: The Telemachiad, The Odyssey and The Nostos (Coming Home). In the Telemachiad, you can still follow the teacher Stephen Dedalus in his classroom and understand what he is trying to teach. Then all, of a sudden, the story changes and you encounter the protagonist of the story, Leopold Bloom. We are supposed to follow him around for the day. And follow we do but we don't always have an idea where this is guiding us. Starting at the breakfast table, we attend a funeral, go to a restaurant and end up in the middle of a play.

The best example why we need punctuation is the last paragraph where Bloom's wife Molly tells us her thoughts about her life in general and her marriage to Leopold in particular. Over forty pages and no punctuation. At all. No comma. No full stop. No paragraph.  You can't even take a break.

However, the longer I distance myself from this novel, the more it makes sense and the bigger an impact does it have on me. I am glad I read it.

If you still are in doubt, consider this quote by William Faulkner:
"You should approach Joyce's Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith."

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.
 
From the back cover:

"For Joyce, literature 'is the eternal affirmation of the spirit of man'. Written between 1914 and 1921, Ulysses has survived bowdlerization, legal action and bitter controversy. An undisputed modernist classic, its ceaseless verbal inventiveness and astonishing wide-ranging allusions confirms its standing as an imperishable monument to the human condition. Declan Kiberd says in his introduction that Ulysses is 'an endlessly open book of utopian epiphanies. It holds a mirror up to the colonial capital that was Dublin on 16 June 1904, but it also offers redemptive glimpses of a future world which might be made over in terms of those utopian moments.'"

Tremain, Rose "Music & Silence"

Tremain, Rose "Music & Silence" - 1999

This can almost be called a saga, so much is in this story of  the Danish court in the 17th century. What I love most about historical novels is the background, and I always read more about that afterwards if I didn't know anything, yet. I never take any part of a story like that for granted until I read about it in a reliable source.

In this case, I learned facts about the Danish court and king Christian IV that I had never heard of before. Very interesting.

The novel itself is quite catching, a lot of (partly fictional) side characters add to the tension. The author uses great language, her sentences are almost poetic, her story flows well, she alternates between different characters, even different storytellers and different forms of writing, letters and diary entries are added to the story itself.

Of course, I also love that this is a rather long story.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"In the year 1629, a young English lutenist named Peter Claire arrives at the Danish Court to join King Christian IV's Royal Orchestra. From the moment when he realizes that the musicians perform in a freezing cellar underneath the royal apartments, Peter Claire understands that he's come to a place where the opposing states of light and dark, good and evil are waging war to the death.

Designated the King's 'Angel' because of his good looks, he finds himself falling in love with the young woman who is the companion of the King's adulterous and estranged wife, Kirsten. With his loyalties fatally divided between duty and passion, how can Peter Claire find the path that will realize his hopes and save his soul?"

Some of my favourite quotes:

"... if we discover, ..., that our love is not reciprocated, we should cease to yearn for this reciprocation, but strive instead to dismantle the love in our hearts. And then in time the confusion will be unravelled and on both sides there will be quietness."

"German ... the way the verb withholds itself from its own completion until the last moment in almost every sentence, thus imparting to all linguistic constructions a hanging thread of mystery." I love it. It's soooo true.

Rutherfurd, Edward "Awakening"

Rutherfurd, Edward "Awakening: The Rebels of Ireland" - 2006

I rarely read the sequel to a book right away, I usually take a little break from the story. But this time, I could not resist. After reading "Dublin", I just had to carry on reading about all those Irish families that witnessed the history of this interesting country first hand.

This novel picks up in 1597, right after the first one finishes, we follow the descendants of the brave characters from book one carrying on the struggle of their ancestors, we follow them through the occupation through the English with the various trials of erasing all Catholicism from the island through the famine to the Easter rising until the declaration of the Republic. What a vivid history.

One thing this book teaches us more than ever, any religious war or dispute is not really about religion but about power and money.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"Edward Rutherfurd’s stirring account of Irish history, the Dublin Saga, concludes in this magisterial work of historical fiction. Beginning where the first volume, The Princes of Ireland, left off, The Rebels of Ireland takes us into a world transformed by the English practice of 'plantation,' which represented the final step in the centuries-long British conquest of Ireland. Once again Rutherfurd takes us inside the process of history by tracing the lives of several Dublin families from all strata of society ' Protestant and Catholic, rich and poor, conniving and heroic.

From the time of the plantations and Elizabeth’s ascendancy Rutherfurd moves into the grand moments of Irish history: the early-17th-century 'Flight of the Earls,' when the last of the Irish aristocracy fled the island; Oliver Cromwell’s brutal oppression and confiscation of lands a half-century later; the romantic, doomed effort of 'The Wild Geese' to throw off Protestant oppression at the Battle of the Boyne. The reader sees through the eyes of the victims and the perpetrators alike the painful realities of the anti-Catholic penal laws, the catastrophic famine and the massive migration to North America, the rise of the great nationalists O’Connell and the tragic Parnell, the glorious Irish cultural renaissance of Joyce and Yeats, and finally, the triumphant founding of the Irish Republic in 1922.

Written with all the drama and sweep that has made Rutherfurd the bestselling historical novelist of his generation, The Rebels of Ireland is both a necessary companion to The Princes of Ireland and a magnificent achievement in its own right."

I also highly recommend  "London" and "The Forest" by the same author.

Find a link to all my reviews on his other novels here.

Rutherfurd, Edward "Dublin"

Rutherfurd, Edward "Dublin: Foundation (The Princes of Ireland: The Dublin Saga)" - 2004

Amazon writes that "few authors are as ambitious as Edward Rutherfurd". I couldn't agree more. The amount of research that must go into his novels can only be described as vast, enormous, gigantic. After reading "London" and "The Forest", I was determined to read all of his books. This came up next. I love Ireland as much as England which I still very much call my home, even though I have moved away a long time ago.

Reaching from the fifth into the 16th century, this novel introduces us to the Ireland of the druids and the ancient Celts until the beginning of the Tudor reign. Rutherfurd draws a picture of a fierce and proud people, he carries on his tales through the centuries by introducing families the reader can follow through time. Unbelievably interesting, a fascinating read that teaches you history on the side.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"Edward Rutherfurd's great Irish epic reveals the story of the people of Ireland through the focal point of the island's capital city. The epic begins in pre-Christian Ireland during the reign of the fierce and powerful High Kings at Tara, with the tale of two lovers, the princely Conall and the ravishing Deirdre, whose travails echo the ancient Celtic legend of Cuchulainn. From this stirring beginning, Rutherfurd takes the reader on a graphically realised journey through the centuries. Through the interlocking stories of a powerfully-imagined cast of characters - druids and chieftains, monks and smugglers, merchants and mercenaries, noblewomen, rebels and cowards - we see Ireland through the lens of its greatest city."

Looking forward to reading part 2 of this saga, "Awakening" that takes us from the end of this book into our present time.

Find a link to all my reviews on his other novels here.

Binchy, Maeve "Tara Road"

Binchy, Maeve "Tara Road" - 1998

I found this book for a pound in a bargain bookshop when I first started reading English books. Somehow it was always moved to the bottom of my pile of books. Then I moved on to a little more challenging books and "Tara Road" looked less and less appealing. A friend told me this was a great book and I should read it, she wanted to lend me the book. I told her I had it at home and then I had no choice but to start it. What do you think? I liked it. It's one of those "easy read" books but it's different. It leaves a story behind that I still remember years after reading this. Something I can't say about most of those similar reads.

Two women switch houses, both of them want to run away from a problem, of course, they are the sort of problem you can't really run away from, so the problem follows them to their respective resort. Nice easy read, even if that's not what you're looking for.

From the back cover:

"Ria Lynch and Marilyn Vine have never met. Their lives have almost nothing in common. Ria lives in a big ramshackle house in Tara Road, Dublin, which is filled day and night with the family and friends on whom she depends. Marilyn lives in a college town in Connecticut, New England, absorbed in her career, an independent and private woman who is very much her own person.

Two more unlikely friends would be hard to find. Yet a chance phone call brings them together and they decide to exchange homes for the summer. Ria goes to America in the hope that the change will give her space and courage to sort out the huge crisis in her life that is threatening to destroy her. Marilyn goes to Ireland to recover in peace and quiet from the tragedy which she keeps secret from the world, little realising that Tara Road will prove to be the least quiet place on earth.

They borrow each other's houses, and during the course of that magical summer they find themselves borrowing something of each other's lives, until a story which began with loss and suffering grows into a story of discovery, unexpected friendship and new hope. By the time Ria and Marilyn eventually meet, they find that they have altered the course of each other's lives for ever."

Moyle, Franny "Constance"

Moyle, Franny "Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs. Oscar Wilde" – 2011

I love Oscar Wilde and I love biographies. So, when I discovered this biography about Oscar Wilde's wife, I didn't have to think twice. I just had to read it.

And I wasn't disappointed. I must say, I had no idea Oscar Wilde even had a wife. And children. Of course, once I knew, I could only imagine a tragedy. And so it was. The life of a woman was hard enough in the middle of the 19th century but being married to one of the most prominent people at the time and being involved in such a scandal must have been an insurmountable obstacle.

Franny Moyle describes Constance's life from the beginning to the end, her youth in poverty, her ascent into society after marrying Oscar and the inevitable fall after his secret life was unveiled. How much power a woman has when it comes to the task to prevent her loved ones from disaster. Constance has shown this to us.

If you are only remotely interested in Oscar Wilde and/or women's lives before ours, this is the book for you.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"In the spring of 1895 the life of Constance Wilde changed irrevocably. Up until the conviction of her husband, Oscar, for homosexual crimes, she had held a privileged position in society. Part of a gilded couple, she was a popular children’s author, a fashion icon, and a leading campaigner for women’s rights. A founding member of the magical society The Golden Dawn, her pioneering and questioning spirit encouraged her to sample some of the more controversial aspects of her time. Mrs. Oscar Wilde was a phenomenon in her own right.

But that spring Constance’s entire life was eclipsed by scandal. Forced to flee to the Continent with her two sons, her glittering literary and political career ended abruptly. She lived in exile until her death.

Franny Moyle now tells Constance’s story with a fresh eye. Drawing on numerous unpublished letters, she brings to life the story of a woman at the heart of fin-de-siècle London and the Aesthetic movement. In a compelling and moving tale of an unlikely couple caught up in a world unsure of its moral footing, Moyle unveils the story of a woman who was the victim of one of the greatest betrayals of all time."

I also read: "The Importance of Being Earnest" and "A Woman of No Importance".

Keyes, Marian "Rachel's Holiday"

Keyes, Marian "Rachel's Holiday" - 1998

Marian Keyes does not really represent the kind of author I would choose to read but I have read a few of those chick lits when I first started reading in English, somehow I thought they might be easier but they were so boring after the first ones … Nevertheless, I still had this book laying around and read it in some holidays a couple of years ago.

I was pleasantly surprised. A good book about rehabilitation and how an alcoholic is in constant denial. Rachel is entering rehab but she thinks she is going to have a great holiday. Well described, you can follow her "reasoning", her way of trying to deal or not deal with the situation. Interesting.

Book Description:

"'How did it end up like this? Twenty-seven, unemployed, mistaken for a drug addict, in a treatment centre in the back arse of nowhere with an empty Valium bottle in my knickers . . .'

Meet Rachel Walsh. She has a pair of size 8 feet and such a fondness for recreational drugs that her family has forked out the cash for a spell in Cloisters - Dublin's answer to the Betty Ford Clinic. She's only agreed to her incarceration because she's heard that rehab is wall-to-wall jacuzzis, gymnasiums and rock stars going tepid turkey - and it's about time she had a holiday.

But what Rachel doesn't count on are the toe-curling embarrassments heaped on her by family and group therapy, the dearth of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll - and missing Luke, her ex. What kind of a new start in life is this?"

McCourt, Frank "'Tis: A Memoir"

McCourt, Frank "'Tis: A Memoir" - 1999

What happens after "Angela's Ashes"? Frank McCourt leaves Ireland and goes back to the States. We all know that he became a teacher and then wrote his book but haven't heard anything from the time in between.

This can be learned in Frank McCourt's second book, just as well written as the first one, also not always a happy time, after all, he is a poor immigrant with no education. And the road to a successful life is strewn with a lot of stones, stumble stones as well as stepping stones. That the author ends up successfully, is due more to some guardian angels as to his own good choice of the right kind of stones. But he is always confident, and I think that made him the man he was in the end.

I liked this book just as much as his first one and his third one "Teacher Man".

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"Frank McCourt continues his life story in the brilliant, bestselling sequel to the million-selling 'Angela's Ashes' .

'Angela's Ashes' was a publishing phenomenon. Frank McCourt's critically-acclaimed, lyrical memoir of his Limerick childhood won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics' Circle Award, the Royal Society of Literature Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award amongst others, and rapidly became a word-of-mouth bestseller topping all charts worldwide for over two years. It left readers and critics alike eager to hear more about Frank McCourt's incredible, poignant life. ''Tis' is the story of Frank's American journey from impoverished immigrant with rotten teeth, infected eyes and no formal education to brilliant raconteur and schoolteacher. Saved first by a straying priest, then by the Democratic party, then by the United States Army, then by New York University – which admitted him on a trial basis though he had no high school diploma – Frank had the same vulnerable but invincible spirit at nineteen that he had at eight and still has today. And ''Tis' is a tale of survival as vivid, harrowing, and hilarious as Angela's Ashes. Yet again, it is through the power of storytelling that Frank finds a life for himself. 'It is only the best storyteller who can so beguile his readers that he leaves them wanting more when he’s done. McCourt proves himself one of the very best' (Newsweek). 'With ‘'Tis', McCourt blesses his readers with another chapter of his story, but as it closes, they will want still more."