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Down but not out

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  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,377 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    The Road - Cormac McCarthy: Wow - what a book! First time reading McCarthy and I was blown away by how good this was. The hopelessness, the utter despair, the almost complete absence of anything normal, and how vividly he depicts it all with his sparse language. I look forward to reading more of his work.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,377 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    How It Is - Samuel Beckett: The third and final part of this short book has been hanging over me for the past few weeks but I finally got through it the other day. Despite it's brevity, being just short of 130 pages, it's probably his most challenging piece of prose fiction, made all the more challenging by the absence of punctuation. If anyone is interested here's an old clip of Nicol Williamson reading an extract from it as Beckett envisaged it. I think it's terrifying!

    Genealogy Forum Mod



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,377 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    A Slanting of the Sun - Donal Ryan: A very interesting collection of short stories from Ryan which, as well as themes and settings one might expect, also includes some much darker elements I wasn't expecting, and all of it is written impeccably.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,377 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    Eats, Shoots and Leaves - Lynne Truss: A wonderful charity shop find the other day and one I've wanted to read since it came out over twenty years ago. Though pitched as a tongue-in-cheek rallying call for the beleaguered punctuation mark, this book is nevertheless a very informative read on the origins of punctuation marks, how their use has evolved over time, and the rules governing their proper usage today.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,377 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    Homegoing - Yaa Gyasi: Another book club choice and one I really didn't expect to like as I'm not one for sagas but, especially in the early chapters, it really drew me in. Beginning in west Africa in the 1700's during the slave trade the author tells the stories of two families, generation by generation, tracing their lives right up to the present. At times the story felt a bit rushed and the jump from one generation to the next a bit jarring but overall I liked it.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



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  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,377 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    Nutshell - Ian McEwan: A curious tale of murder amid domestic disharmony told from the bizarre perspective of the as yet unborn sole witness to events. I really liked this book, the writing was excellent, and I got through it in a few days.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,377 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    The French Intifada - Andrew Hussey: I've always had a certain grá for France - maybe it's all the years I spent watching the Tour - but my recent discovery that my birth father is Breton coaxed me to buy some books about the country. Written by the same author as Paris: The Secret History (still tbr), this was a very readable book, a real eye opener about the roots of so much of the conflict in the Arab world and beyond, and like Homegoing, it pulled no punches in describing the absolute savagery and barbarism of the colonists.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,377 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    I started this thread a year ago so I'll stick with that date and, depending on which list I look at, I've either read 36 or 38 books in the past 12 months which I'm very happy about. The reading log has definitely given my reading a new impetus so thanks to any of you who take the time to read my ramblings. My favourite by far was Lessons by Ian McEwan, though I was also really struck by The Road and Yell Sam If You Still Can, and my least favourite was Dracula which was such a let down given its fame. I've given up on a number of books including Sophie's World which I may have read before and am just not that interested in rereading, Underworld by Don DeLillo which was so painfully slow, and a couple by Jonathan Franzen which did nothing for me. Most of the books I read in the past year were relatively short so I intend to get through some longer works this time round, including Cryptonomicon which I've just started, Ulysses which is long overdue given I'm forever listening to the RTE dramatisation of it in the car, and Wolf Hall and They All Love Jack which I'm determined to get back to and finish.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,377 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    For God's Sake: The Hidden Life of Irish Nuns - Camillus Metcalfe: An odd choice for the book club and one I didn't expect to be able to read. I have no time for religion and, as an adoptee, I have nothing but contempt for the Catholic Church. And I didn't want to have to deal with the anger a rose-tinted account of how wonderful the nuns were and how none of the abuses took place was likely to provoke. But this book proved to be nothing of the sort. Instead, I feel I got a genuine insight into the life of nuns and I found that strangely cathartic. The system they existed in was nothing short of cultish - they were robbed of their identity, their autonomy, their agency - and though this does not for one second excuse the cruelty they meted out, it does go some way towards explaining the source of that cruelty. This is not a book I would ever have read off my own bat but I'm very grateful to the book club member who suggested it.

    Separately, after nearly 300 pages of Cryptonomicon I'm not prepared to waste any more time on this drivel. I was determined to stick with it despite not liking it as it had been recommended by a friend whose recommendations are usually worth a read (The Fountainhead and Neuromancer being two that come to mind) but this book is just awful. The language is crass, the writing is terrible, and there's just so much unnecessary detail.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,377 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    Redhead by the Side of the Road - Anne Tyler: This book club choice by an author I hadn't read before was at least some light relief after Cryptonomicon but alas it wasn't much else. However, given that Tyler is a Pulitzer winner, and has been long- and short-listed for the Booker, I'm keen to read something else of hers - I have Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on the shelf - to see what all the fuss is about because while Redhead… wasn't a bad book by any means it was no great shakes either.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



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  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,377 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    Where Are You From? No, Where Are You Really From? - Audrey Osler: As a former taxi driver Where are you from? was a question I asked and was asked frequently and it made for some very interesting conversations. However, the question can also have some very negative connotations and I was hoping the author would deal with the question from that perspective. Instead she brought the reader on a very interesting journey through her family tree which was very good in and of itself but it wasn't what I wanted for from the book unfortunately.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,377 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    The Thing About December - Donal Ryan: Another very dark portrait of rural Irish life. The writing is wonderful as one would expect from Ryan but the vivid depictions of loneliness rang so true it wasn't always a pleasant read.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,377 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    Foster - Claire Keegan: When I spotted this very short book - not even a hundred pages - in the local library I was quick to grab it as I've been wanting to read something of Keegan's for a while now and I'm so glad I did as it's just a beautiful little story. The portrait of rural Irish life has been done so well so many times that I'm always surprised when another author depicts it anew. There's something about the elevation of the mundane, the everyday, that gets me every time. In Donal Ryan's Strange Flowers it was the tea and turf smoke and in Foster it's tomatoes and onions chopped fine, apple tart and cream, an awkward moment involving some rhubarb. But there's something else besides, a way in which I found I kept running up against the physical presence of the things depicted - be it a hot bath or the well or the fields, or even the people - the prose is punctuated by them and it's just wonderful. And it's wonderful that this little book can say so much in so few pages. Like William Trevor's Sitting with the Dead this is another one that will stay with me.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,377 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    Prague Pictures - John Banville: The fourth of seven in the Writer and the City series of books, if you're a fan of Banville I think you'll enjoy his reflections on the city of Prague through the centuries. Though I'd have enjoyed it a lot more if those reflections had been focused more on modern Prague but a fair chunk of the book is taken up with the meeting of Kepler and Brahe, and the background to that momentous event in the history of astronomy.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,377 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    So Late in the Day - Claire Keegan: Another very small book but not nearly as good as Foster. It really ought to have been a bit longer in order to properly explore the themes raised in the story.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,377 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    The Secret History - Donna Tartt: After seeing an old interview she did with Charlie Rose on YouTube I was keen to read something of Donna Tartt's and this, the first of her three novels to date, did not disappoint. While the plot wasn't especially original and the conclusion I felt was a bit of a cope out, there was something about this book that made it an absolute pleasure to read. I vaguely remember a long time back someone on this forum referring to the sweep of the great American novel and there's definitely something of that here. While there were no particularly memorable lines or phrases the quality and consistency of the writing throughout was superb and the characters came alive on the page. I've since learned that she's spent about ten years writing each of her books so maybe all that time spent honing her craft is the source of the magic.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



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